


The 103

by anorak188



Series: The 103 [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Babyfic, Canon Divergence, F/M, Fake Dating, Traumatic birth, Unplanned Pregnancy, all is well in the end though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 17:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 61,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22466956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anorak188/pseuds/anorak188
Summary: Morgan Leven was a promising pharma student one year away from graduation when her best friend, Miller, found himself in trouble. Unable to abandon him, Morgan finds herself arrested for her involvement. Four days away from her eighteenth birthday and certain execution, it's a miracle she finds herself as one of the hundred. But in just four days, she ruins it.With just six months before she becomes a mother, Morgan must learn to navigate a fake relationship with the baby's father, rebuild broken friendships, and learn to live in this dangerous new world.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The 103 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706335
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	1. One

**_7 weeks 3 days July 12, 2149_ **

Less than two months after landing on the ground, seventy-six of us remained. 

I sit by three newly dug graves, turning over five smooth stones I carried up from the river, trying to decide which to use as gravestones. I weigh a sandstone in my hands, big enough to cover both palms, and pick up my carving knife. _M-A-T-T-H-E-W_. I don't know how I ended up with this job. I don't know how we lost twenty-six people in less than two months. 

Actually, I do know how. 

The Ark sent us down here to die. One tiny box of medical supplies. A few tents. No matches. No water. No food. No weapons. No way to protect ourselves from the people and the animals already living here. I hope they never come down. They deserve to die up there.

I pick up the second stone. _S-E-L-E-N-E_.

A branch breaks behind me and I jump out of my skin, dropping the rock on my foot, drawing my knife on my attacker. But it's only Miller, coming home from his rotation on guard duty. 

"Miller! Miller!" I race after him, trying to ignore my aching foot. "You can't avoid me forever!"

He turns around and looks at me for the first time in six months. "Yes, I can."

I catch up to him and grab his arm, forcing him to be still and talk to me. "We need to have this conversation."

He jerks his arm back and keeps walking. 

"I'm sorry, okay!" I yell after him. "I felt like I had to! To protect you, Miller, my best friend of fifteen years."

He whips around. "You know, I don't even think you're guilty. I don't even think you care about what you did."

I stand there open mouthed. "Of course, I care! I'm not a monster."

Miller raises his eyebrows like I've just told the grandiose lie of the century. "Yeah, you are." He shoves open the gate, letting it slam behind him with a heavy thud.

I slink back to the cemetery and throw the knife at the ground. It lands blade-down in the dirt between two of the freshly dug graves. How can he be so upset with me? I was trying to keep him out of the Sky Box. I was trying to save him.

I sit at the foot of the third grave and choose another stone. 

I draw the knife from the earth. Dirt clings to its blade all the way up to the handle, meeting my fingers as they wrap around it.

I shut my eyes as a wave of memory washes over me, threatening to make me sick.

How can he think I have no guilt?

"Yikes, that looks rough," Raven comments as she limps into the infirmary tent. For someone who was shot five weeks ago, she's moving around pretty well.

Clarke probes my foot gently, running her fingers along the bones. In the hours since my confrontation with Miller, my foot has grown a large purple and black bruise. "I don't think anything is broken. I think it's just going to be a really bad bruise. Can you walk?"

I flex my foot. It looks worse than it feels. "Yeah. I can still get around."

"You should be okay then." Clarke hands my boot to me. "Just loosen up the laces, alright? In case it swells."

"Got it, doc," I smile, wiggling my fingers between the tight laces. 

"Bellamy found this taped under the seat of the pod." Raven hands Clarke a small white plastic box marked with a red cross. Medical supplies. "I didn't know Abby put it in there."

"Thank god." She flips open the lid of the box, revealing clean bandages, antibiotic ointment, and a few assorted glass vials of something. She picks up a vial containing a rust colored liquid. She holds it up to the light and gives it a shake. "What's this?"

I crane my neck around to see what she's holding. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Were you a medical apprentice?" Clarke asks. "I thought I would've recognized you if you were."

I limp over to them and take the vial. "I was training in pharmaceuticals before I was arrested." I turn the vial over, reading the label. Serpentes antivenin. "This is antivenom."

Clarke furrows her brow. "Antivenom? For what?"

I put the vial back in the box. "Snakes."

"There were no snakes on the Ark," Clarke points out, as though I hadn't noticed in nearly eighteen years of living there. "Why did they make antivenom?"

"Just before the bombs, scientists found a universal snake antivenom. I looked through the library once and found a book containing the formula. I'm assuming that's what this is." I pick up another vial, this one a pale cornflower blue. "This is spider antivenom."

Clarke takes the vial from me and holds it, letting it roll around her palm. "It'd be nice if they sent us down with this stuff in the beginning."

Raven smiles to herself. "Abby wanted to make sure you'd survive. She never lost hope that the hundred were alive."

Clarke turns to me. "You said you were in pharma before you were arrested. Can you make medicines for us?" She turns over the blue vial in her palm. "Stuff like this?"

I shake my head. "Not like this, not without a lab. But I could make medicines from the plants if I knew which ones to use. Earth Skills was a little outdated, as you've probably noticed."

Clarke nods. "We'll go see Lincoln tomorrow." She turns to Raven, her thumb pressed so hard into her fist it bends backwards, the other fingers shaking. "How's contacting the Ark going? When's the last time you tried?"

"Clarke, there's no point."

"Yes, there is." Clarke storms out of the tent for the dropship where the radio is, Raven struggling to keep up. "We can't give up on them."

Raven bats away the curtain covering the dropship door. "You saw the other dropship, Clarke."

"That was one dropship. There were ten on the Ark, we took one, and someone else took one, that means there are eight more that haven't come down. They could still be up there. That was probably a test run."

"Yeah, a test run that was a horrific failure," Raven scoffs. "You said it yourself. The Ark is dying. It was dying two months ago when we left."

Clarke puts the headphones on and starts turning dials on the radio. "Maybe they got it fixed."

Raven puts her hand over Clarke's. "Clarke."

"I can't just forget about them, okay!" Clarke's on the verge of tears. "You might not have anyone up there you care about, Raven, but I do!"

"Fine," Raven says, pushing Clarke out of the way. "I'll do it. And for the record, I do have people I care about up there. I'm just a realist," she mutters under her breath.

Raven slips on the headphones and listens carefully as she turns the knobs. Suddenly her expression changes, her face turning pale. 

"What?" Clarke demands, leaning on the table. "What is it?"

Without saying a word, Raven hands the headphones to Clarke.

Clarke listens for a few moments then rips the headphones off. They clatter against the metal table, echoing in the closed in walls. She walks away from the radio and stands in the corner, her chest heaving.

"What is it?" I ask Raven.

"Listen for yourself," she says.

I slip the headphones on. The voice is distressed, panting. It's Chancellor Jaha. "The hundred of Earth, if you are still alive, hear me now. The Ark has suffered substantial damage due to a premature ship launch. I'm sorry, but we won't be coming home." A different voice, an automated one, says, "144,000." The message repeats and the automated voice says a new number, "144,001."

"It's a loop," Raven says, taking the headphones from me and hooking them over the radio. She doesn't seem surprised or sad or angry like Clarke was. She looks tired. "It's been playing for over three weeks now."

I lower my voice, trying to not upset Clarke more, but it appears she's left the dropship. "So, they're all dead?"

"No doubt they are by now." She pulls herself up from her seat at the table. "I guess we're really out of luck."

"The Ark is dead," Clarke says without fanfare that night around the fire.

Miller sits in the dirt opposite me, his face pressed against a long stick he's using to poke the fire. "What do you mean 'dead'?"

"The dropship we saw three weeks ago launched prematurely and it crippled the Ark. Jaha left a message playing on a loop for us," I tell him.

He doesn't look or speak to me. He turns to Clarke instead and asks, "Is that true?"

Clarke leans back, using one hand to support herself. "Life support was already failing. It wouldn't have taken much to tip it over the edge."

Murphy leans forward, interested. "So, they're all dead?"

Clarke nods. 

Murphy stands. "Well on that happy note, I'm off to bed." He lets out a whoop as he saunters off into the darkness.

Raven frowns. "Some of us still had people we loved up there."

"Some of us didn't," I say.

"We still need their help," Monty says. "A few teenagers with guns is not an army, a guy whose parents grew the food is not a farmer, a guy who did well in chemistry is not a scientist." Jasper smacks his arm. "Am I wrong?"

"No," he admits.

"We still need them."

Clarke stands, throwing something into the fire, making sparks fly. "No one is coming to help us now."


	2. Two

_**7 weeks 4 days July 13, 2149** _

Clarke whips open the tent I share with Harper and Raven. Her face has lost the trauma of yesterday, though I know she's not over it. No one could be over losing their mother and everyone else they've ever known in less than twenty-four hours. "Up and at 'em, Morgan. Busy day ahead. We're going to see Lincoln about those medicinal plants." 

I groan and hug my pillow. "Does it have to be right now?"

"It's mid-morning already. Raven and Harper were up hours ago." She yanks the blanket off me. "Why weren't you?"

I force myself to sit up and rub my eyes. "Because I'm _tired_."

She throws my boots at me. "Come on. I want to be back before dark."

I pull on my jacket and shoes, squinting at the bright morning light. "How far away do you think Lincoln's cave is?"

"Lincoln isn't a healer. But we need him to get us into TonDc so we can find their healer."

That wakes me up. "Hold on, now. TonDc? As in the Trikru village? As in the epicenter of the people who have killed nineteen of ours?" I shake my head, laying back down. "Nope. Wake me up when you have a different plan."

"Fine. I guess I'll just have to remember this when you get sick or hurt and we have no medicine. Ooh," she winces, as though the thought just came to her. "What if you get bitten by a snake? I'd have no idea how to dose you with antivenom, so I guess you'd just be out of luck."

I fling the blanket back. "Fine. Let's go."

Clarke looks amused. "Let's get you some breakfast before we go. It'll be a long day."

We stop by the smokehouse on our way out. Miller, Murphy, and Eudora are hanging up this morning's haul. "What's cooking?"

Miller looks at Clarke as though I'm not even there. "A deer and two squirrels."

Clarke eyes the barely filled smokehouse with a worried look. We'd barely been bringing anything in since the treaty with Trikru that forced us onto specific hunting grounds. "Anything already done? Morgan and I are headed out, and she decided to sleep through breakfast."

Miller doesn't say anything and goes back to tying up a cut of deer. Eudora picks up on the tension and takes down a few small strips of meat, handing them to me. "Rabbit."

The smell of the meat sends my stomach rolling. "Actually, I think I'll skip breakfast."

Clarke narrows her eyes. "You'll be starving by the time we get back. It'll be a long day of walking." She takes the meat and forces it into my hands. "You have to eat."

My mouth starts to water, letting my body know it's on the verge of vomiting. I push the meat away. "No, thanks."

"Morgan. You have to eat."

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep it together. "No, I'm sorry." I rush out of the smokehouse, put my hands on my knees, and inhale deep breaths of fresh air, trying desperately to still my rolling stomach. 

Clarke shakes her head at me. "What was that?"

"Sorry, I just –," I let out a shaky breath as another round of nausea rolls over me. "I just feel really sick all of a sudden."

Clarke puts a gentle hand on my back and helps me straighten up. She lowers her voice. "Are you that nervous about going to TonDc?"

"No," I brush the sticky hair out of my face, wet with cold sweat. "I'm good. Let's go." I am absolutely not good, but I've got to get a grip. It's time to grow up. There's no one coming with a helping hand now.

Clarke looks at me warily. "I can't have you getting sick halfway through the trip."

"I'm good. I'm fine," I insist. "I think I just need some time to wake up before I eat." I give her a weak smile. "Not all of us are get-up-and-goers."

"If you're sure." Clarke wraps up the meat and puts it in her bag. "I'll save this for later."

The walk isn't long to Lincoln's cave. Just outside, I hear Octavia's voice. 

"Clarke. Morgan." Octavia stops in her tracks, Lincoln just behind her. "What're you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too, Octavia," Clarke says, only an ounce of offense in her words. "We need your help, Lincoln."

"With what?" 

"Medicinal plants. Morgan trained in pharmaceuticals on the Ark, and we're in desperate need of a way to make medicine. What we were sent down with has been used up, and what's left won't last."

"I'm not a healer. I can't help you."

"So take us to Nyko," Clarke insists. 

"Nyko is our healer. He doesn't make the medicine."

Clarke shakes her head. "Then who does?"

He pauses, wavering. "I can take you to a woman named Althea. She's TonDc's apothecary."

"Perfect," I say, exasperated. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"We're not," he winces, "on the best terms. I won't be going in with you."

I look up at him curiously. "What happened?"

Lincoln continues marching forward to TonDc, refusing to look back at me. "It's none of your concern." Great. I've just offended someone else.

After a few hours' walk we come across a settlement of sorts. People rove back and forth between the scattered buildings, taking care of daily tasks – some cooking, some hanging up clean clothes, children playing in the courtyard. I'm not sure why I imagined a military campground. These are just people living.

"This is it. Can you find your way back home without me?" Lincoln already seems antsy to leave without ever setting foot in TonDc, his hand nervously resting on Octavia's back, ready to get out of there the moment we say yes. 

I look at Clarke to see if she's picking up on it too. "We're good," she says. "Thank you."

Lincoln and Octavia take off in the direction we came in, their footfalls fading into the ambient noise of the woods as they disappear between the trees. "That was odd, don't you think?"

Clarke furrows her brow. "Very. Come on. We'll find Nyko first, and then we'll find Althea."

She heads into the village, but I grab her arm, suddenly overcome with fear. Just because they look harmless does not mean we are welcome here. "What will they say about two Skaikru just waltzing in their village unaccompanied?"

She puts her hand on mine. "It's okay. Nyko knows me. He'll vouch for us." I realize I'm still holding my breath. "We'll be fine." 

I swallow the lump in my throat. If we're going to survive, I have to do this. We have to make peace with the other clans, learn from each other, and learn to live together. We have to.

Thankfully, just moments after entering, Clarke spots the healer. "Nyko!" she calls out from across the village square. 

Nyko turns out to be as tall as Lincoln and even broader. The sheer intimidation of his size does not help the welling pit of fear in my stomach. He has a swirling tattoo over his eye and a thick dark beard; quite the opposite of tiny blonde Clarke.

"What can I do for you, Clarke kom Skaikru?"

Despite the vast size difference, Clarke is no less commanding. "We need to meet with your apothecary. Althea."

Nyko tilts his head ever so slightly. "Who told you about Althea?"

"You say that as though she's some sort of secret," I point out.

"Lincoln," Clarke snaps at me, her eyes silently telling me to shut it. "Lincoln told us she could teach Morgan how to make medicine on Earth. You could say Morgan is our apothecary, except she's only been trained in a lab."

Nyko's face is expressionless. "I assume that's why he's not here." He turns to me. "I'll take you to her." Clarke turns to follow us, but Nyko holds his hand out, blocking her path. "Only her. Althea is very discrete, and won't take kindly to many visitors."

He leads me to a small, one room wooden building at the edge of the village. Smoke billows up from the chimney despite it being the middle of summer. Through the open shuttered windows, a woman about Lincoln's age works at something unseen, moving back and forth throughout the building. She ties up her long straight black hair in a bun, then smiles down at something. 

"Althea!" 

The woman cranes her head out of the window. "Hey, Nyko!"

"This woman would like to speak with you," he says, gesturing to me. "She's Skaikru."

Althea starts to close the shutters.

"Wait!" 

Althea pauses, the shutters half closed. 

I didn't expect her to actually listen to me. I swallow, trying to be brave enough to get what I need, but not so aggressive as to scare her away. "I'm an apothecary too." I step forward, my hands raised in peace. "Except I only know how to make medicine in space. We're running out of what we have and," I take a shaky breath. "We need help. We need you."

"And what makes you think I'd help you? Do you know how many of my people your people have killed?"

"Too many," I recognize. "I just want us to learn to live together. To learn from each other. I'm extending the olive branch."

"What's an olive branch? What is that supposed to mean to me?"

"It's an expression where I come from. It means an offering of peace."

"What do I get out of this trade? My knowledge of Earth and medicine for what?"

I pause. I don't have anything to offer.

"Well? Am I supposed to just offer you everything I know for nothing?" She looks down again and moves her arm, as if grabbing for something unseen. "Stop," she says to the ground.

I turn to Nyko. "Get Clarke."

Althea gives me a wary look. "Who is Clarke?"

"Clarke is our healer. She's very good at what she does but, like me, is not used to practicing medicine on Earth. We're trying together to keep our people alive."

Nyko returns with Clarke. "What's going on? Is this Althea?"

"Yes," I tell Clarke. "Give me your bag."

She hands me the bag and I kneel down on the ground, emptying its contents until I find what I'm looking for. I pull out the dried rabbit, ignoring the signals my stomach gives me, and put it to the side. There is a long hunting knife on top of a jacket. I don't want to whip out a knife on the people I'm trying to convince to help us, so I try to conceal it the best I can in the jacket and pull out the balled-up jacket instead. In the bottom of the bag is a plastic box with a large red cross on the front. 

I open the box. I pull out a sterile needle, syringe, and a vial of rust colored liquid. "I have medicine I can trade in exchange for your teaching. Special medicine, rare even in space."

Clarke's eyes go wide. "Morgan, you can't –"

I turn and mouth to her, "I've got this."

"What is that?" Althea demands.

"It's antivenom. For snakes."

"Antivenom?"

"It will reverse the effects of a snakebite," I explain, stepping forward. I see her hand automatically reach for something, so I stop in my tracks. "It's yours if you'll teach me, the needle to use with it, too."

"Is that it? One tiny vial? How many people will that cure?"

"That all depends on height and weight," I say, looking down at the bottle, at the only hope of survival if one of us are bitten by a snake. "Maybe two or three."

"Two or three?" she laughs. "We're done here."

"Wait!" I call out again. "What if I gave you this too?" I rattle around in the box, looking for something else. I hold up a blue vial instead. "This does the same thing, but for spiders."

She turns back to the window, suddenly intrigued. "Spiders? What kind of spiders?"

"All of them."

"All of them? You're sure?"

"Yes," I say. "I studied the formulation on the Ark. All of them."

Althea disappears from the window for a moment, then appears at the door, holding it open. "Come in."

I pick up the contents of Clarke's bag and hand them to her.

"You can keep the snake antivenom," she calls out. "You may need it."

I put the spider antivenom in her hand, as well as the sterile needle. "Thank you."

The door shuts behind us. The building is tiny compared to most buildings here on Earth, about twelve feet square. A chimney rises up along the back wall with something boiling in a pot hanging over the fire. There are shelves all along the walls holding bundles of leaves, tins of ointments, and bottles of liquids. A long counter runs across the front wall. Most surprisingly, butted up against the wall to my left, is something that almost resembles a wooden cage, except the top is missing. Blankets line the inside of it, along with a handmade stuffed animal: a bunny. 

"For my daughter," Althea explains. She points to the little girl hiding under the counter. Her dark brown eyes regard me with caution. "Her name is Iris. She's almost two."

"She's lovely," I smile. 

"So this is for spider bites?" She puts the vial and needle on a high shelf, far from Iris's reach. "Would it work on the venom if it was administered separately? If the spider didn't directly bite them?"

I shake my head, unsure. "I don't see why not. Are you planning on injecting someone with venom?"

"Not me, no," she says, taking a seat on a stool in front of the counter. She gestures for me to do the same. "But if you're right, you might've just saved a few lives with it."

I put my bag down on the floor. "Is there some kind of spider epidemic going on around here or something?"

"No," she says. Iris clings to her mother's leg, my presence clearly making her uncomfortable. "We have an Azgeda epidemic though." Iris whines and stretches her arms up, stomping and crying until Althea picks her up, hugging her close. "Could you reach me her stuffed animal?"

I retrieve the stuffed bunny from the playpen and offer it to Iris, still keeping my distance. "Here you go, little one." She takes it quickly, hugging it to her chest to protect it. "What's Azgeda?"

"Azgeda is another clan," Althea explains. "They live in the far north territory, in land everyone else deems unlivable. I'm guessing maybe it's getting unlivable for them too, because they're putting pressure on all the other clans. Maybe it's a power struggle, I don't know. They're taking supplies, kidnapping warriors, stealing land. They're using venom from spiders found only in the coldest parts of the Earth on darts and arrows to take out the strongest. Once they're exposed to the venom," she shakes her head. "The only humane thing left to do is to kill them."

I'm speechless. 

"Anyway," Althea continues. "You said you were trained in space, right? I'm guessing there were different rules to medicine up there."

It takes me a moment to gather my bearings after hearing about this other clan. "Yes, I was."

"Well? What was it like?"

I look around the small apothecary shop, with its creaking wooden floors, swirling hot caldron, and leaves drying from strings on the ceiling. "It was very white."

"White?" she laughs. "What does that mean?"

I smile. "Very sterile. Highly restricted access. We derived most of our medicine from plants we could grow in these big rooms with sun lamps, but it went through a lot of chemical processes to make the ingredients as pure as possible. We could form them into pills with a tiny mold, or mix them with sterile water for injections or intravenous use." I think back on my years spent in front of textbooks, hours spent in the lab carefully mixing and measuring, the threat of being accidentally being responsible for someone's death making me extra vigilant. "We had something for almost every ailment."

Althea surveys her humble workspace. "It's nothing like that down here. We have gardens in the spring and summer for some our medicinal plants, but most of it we find in scavenging parties." She pauses for a moment, as if deciding something. "Would you like to come along on one?"

I jump at the opportunity to learn. "Yes, please."

"The next one is in three weeks. That's when the yarrow is at its best for harvesting. We'll start there." She stands, signaling the end of my stay. "Meet me here then and I'll teach you how to find it."


	3. Three

**_8 weeks 2 days July 18, 2149_ **

" _I will be covering subcutaneous injection medications, often referred to as subcut or sub q. Now, subcutaneous injections will go into the layer of fat beneath the skin, and they are given here and not in the muscle or vein because –"_

_A notification bar appears at the top of the screen of my data pad, pulling me away from Wyatt's end of lesson presentation. I'd been assigned IV anesthetics and was trying to distract myself from the nerves of public speaking all morning. I pull down the notification bar and see it's a message from Miller. I smile and click on the notification._

**_Uh oh._ **

_I laugh to myself. **Pike trying to burn down the lab in Earth Skills again?**_

**_I think I'm about to go to Lock Up._ **

**_Are you the one trying to burn down Earth Skills?_ **

**_I'm serious. I just lifted something from Jaha's office, and I think someone saw me._ **

_My heart skips a beat. If he gets caught for that, there's no coming back. **Who?**_

_**I'm not sure. He's a first-year cadet, super blonde hair. You know how those first-years are. I'm toast.** _

**_I'm coming._ **

**_Don't._ **

**_You can't stop me._ **

**_Morgan._ **

**_'What better friend than this?' right?_ **

**_Please don't. You have such a bright future ahead in pharma. Don't waste it on me._ **

**_I'm not wasting it. I'm going to use it to help us._ **

_I stand up. "Mr. Hayes? I'm sorry, but I think I'm getting a migraine. May I be excused?"_

_Our fifth-year pharma teacher, Mr. Hayes, rocks back in his swivel chair. "Nerves getting to you Miss Leven? You always were the anxious type."_

_I huff, pretending to wince at the sound of his voice. "While that may be true, rest assured I am fully prepared for my presentation. You can even look over the materials I have prepared to prove it." I squint, shading my eyes with my hand. "Can I please do it tomorrow instead? I just need to sleep this off."_

_He peers over his glasses, trying to decide if I'm telling the truth or not. "I'll allow it."_

_I stand up and gather my things. "Thank you so much. First thing tomorrow, I promise."_

A boot nudges my leg. "Wake up."

I open my eyes and look at my hands. Clean. No blood.

"Wake up."

I sit up on my elbows and brush the hair out of my face. "Huh?"

"Are you on guard duty tonight?"

"What? No, I'm not on the guard rotation," I yawn. "I was in pharma on the Ark. I've been helping Clarke in Medical."

Bellamy crosses his arms. "What are you doing in here then?"

I look around, remembering where I am. The dropship. My tent was too hot and the cold metal floor of the dropship seemed so inviting. "I was helping her make stretchers all morning. I got tired."

Bellamy scoffs. "You got tired?" He points outside to the other delinquents. "Do you think they get tired? Or I get tired? We're all tired, Morgan. But we all work."

"Geez, sorry." I gather up my jacket with a huff. "Sorry I listened to the doctor. Next time I won't puke all morning."

His eyes soften briefly. "Hey, listen, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were sick."

"It's fine." I shake my head. "I think my body's just having trouble adjusting to the food down here. It's not protein paste and fiber wafers anymore."

"No, it's not." He laughs a little and gives me a small smile, attempting at an apology, but quite frankly, I'm not in the mood.

"Whatever." I fling back the tarp covering the door of the dropship. Somehow, I manage to make it back to my tent before falling asleep again, though I don't remember to kick off my boots. 

"I've been looking all over for you." I yawn as the image in front of me comes into focus: a concerned Clarke. "You were supposed to come back after lunch." She crouches by my bed, holding a bottle of water out to me. "Bellamy said he saw you in the dropship and you said you were sick. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, sorry." I wave my hand. "It's nothing. My stomach is just sensitive to the food down here."

"Well until it adjusts, you need to drink water if nothing else. You need to stay hydrated in this heat."

I take the water bottle from her. "Thanks."

"Drink," she insists. "Monty's roasting a deer. He might have some pieces already done if you're hungry."

"Wait," I stop her. "How long did I sleep for?"

Clarke gestures outside. "Come look for yourself."

I stumble outside, still trying to shake the sleep from my bones. I take a long sip of water and turn my eyes to the sky. Cirrus clouds are lit up brilliant shades of pink and gold. I slept the entire afternoon.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"Yeah," I tell her. "Thanks for the water. I'm sure I'm was just dehydrated."


	4. Four

_**10 weeks 5 days August 4, 2149** _

Despite all the water I could manage, I slept the next two weeks away. 

"You look better," Clarke comments as I come into Medical to pick up some leather pouches before my foraging trip with Althea today. 

"I finally feel better." I shove the pouches into my bag. "I think I'm finally getting used to the food. You drink recycled pee and eat protein paste all your life and suddenly your body can't handle the real stuff."

"Well I'm glad you're feeling more like yourself." Clarke turns and digs into a large metal bin behind her. She pulls out a plastic first aid box. "I repacked it with things you're more likely to need for first aid on your trip. Bandages and all that. What I didn't include is the snake antivenom or the last of the opioids. No offense Morgan, but I don't want you traveling with such valuable medicine by yourself anymore. We've already lost a sterile needle and the spider antivenom to your little trade with the Grounder."

I take the box from her and shove it in my pack. "I know I should've asked you first, but I felt like if she thought we were making some secret plan behind her back, she'd never help us. I needed her to see our generosity in order for her to give us her own." I sling the bag over my shoulder. "I needed her to know I was in charge over the medicine for our people. She's in charge of her people's, so I thought she would see me as an equal, and –"

Clarke stands to look me in the eye. "You are not in charge."

"Oh really?" I hold her gaze. "How long was your pharmacology training? Three weeks? Six? I studied nothing but drugs for five years. What would happen if I didn't make the medicine for you?"

She steps forward. "And if I don't treat you when you're sick?" Another step. "Or hurt? What if that Grounder decides you've learned too much and decides to try to kill you? Who will help you then?" I can feel her breath on my face; she's standing on the tips of my boots. "You will consult me before giving away our supplies again. We don't make these decisions alone."

I step away, mock saluting her. "Aye-aye, Madam Chancellor."

"I mean it, Morgan," she calls out after me.

"I began to wonder if you'd ever show." Althea steps out of the apothecary cabin, carrying an empty bag across her chest and Iris strapped to her back like a backpack.

"Don't you have anyone to watch her?" I ask, falling into pace with her. "What about her dad?"

Althea stops. "If you won't go on this harvest with my child, you must not be that interested in learning."

"No, no, I will," I clarify. "I just thought it might be difficult to spend the day on a hike with a toddler."

"It is difficult," Althea says. "But what do you want me to do about it? Her dad left us, my family is dead thanks to Azgeda, and I don't trust anyone else with her."

"Sorry. I didn't know."

Althea heads deeper into the woods. "Do you have kids? Younger siblings?"

"No, I don't," I say. "The Ark had a strict one child per family policy, and even then you had to get approval from the council before you had a baby. If you didn't, or you had a second child, the child was raised in Lock Up – it's like jail for juvenile offenders – and the parents were executed."

"That seems pretty harsh," Althea winces.

"They did it to ensure the survival of what was left of the human race, or what we thought was left of it. Life support on the Ark can only handle so many people at best." I hop over a fallen log. "They sent us down because life support was failing, and they needed people to jump ship so they didn't need to use so much oxygen."

Althea takes a moment, taking it all in. "So, you're an apothecary –"

"They call us pharmacists where I come from."

"Pharmacist, then." Althea takes a sharp right at a tree marked with a teardrop carving. "What other specialists did they send down?"

"Oh, actually most of us aren't trained in anything," I say. Despite the toddler on her back, I'm struggling to keep up. "We have a doctor, a mechanic, a chemist, and a farmer, but I'm afraid that's it. The rest were arrested before they entered their trades, or they weren't interested in learning them anyway."

She turns around sharply. "Arrested?"

"Surprise!" I say with fake excitement. "We're all criminals!" 

"Criminals," she echoes.

I draw back into myself, preparing for a speedy getaway. "Do you want to kill me now?"

She pauses for a moment, pondering over my question. "No. But I do want to know what you did."

"I don't think you do."

"If you want me to show you which of these plants are yarrow," she points to the clearing we've just arrived in, "you'll tell me."

"Fine," I say, "you got me. I stole a book from the library. They're protected because they were printed on Earth over a hundred years ago and some parts of the Ark get too hot, and it could ruin the –"

She closes her eyes, frustrated. "That's not what you did."

"What?"

"You wouldn't be so antsy if all you did was steal a book."

"It's the truth," I insist.

"Did you hurt someone?"

"What does it matter?"

"Did you kill them?"

I stop.

Althea stops too. "You did."

My voice is tight. "I was protecting someone I love."

Althea nods slowly. "Right."

"I ruined my life, I know. You don't have to remind me."

"Would you do it again?"

"No. Not ever. Not in a million years."

"Then you didn't ruin your life."

"Who are you to decide that?"

"Look, I've done some really terrible things too," she says, putting Iris on the ground. She breaks out into a run in a wide circle around us, giggling and squealing as her hands rake through the tall grass, her mountainous curls shining glossy black in the August sun. "Not too far!" she calls out after her. She turns back to me. "I'm not proud of them and I will regret them for as long as I live. But I'm not dead. I still have my life, and I can still find purpose and redemption. As long as you're living, your life is not ruined beyond repair." She turns back around to check on Iris, who's picking tiny purple flowers and trying to put them on her head like a crown.

"Thanks," I say. "I needed that."

Althea turns back to me and sniffs, her nose turning red and her voice strained. "Yeah, well, don't we all?"

I sit down on a fallen tree for a second to rest my legs and take a long sip of water from a canteen.

Althea sits down beside me. "So, about the yarrow."

I take another drink, squinting in the bright light to see her. "What about it?"

"It looks like this." She hands me a leather-bound book with thick paper and an ink drawing of the plant. Below it the name of the plant is listed, it's ideal harvest time, and uses.

"This is brilliant," I say, flipping through the pages. "Did you make this?"

"No," Althea laughs. "Long before my time. It's given to each new apothecary as they train. Eventually you come to memorize it, and then it's passed on to someone else. I have one for you too," she pulls out a second leather book, the cover soft but not worn. "It's blank, though, so you'll have to fill it in yourself. I'll teach you the ones I know, and then you can go back home and record them in there."

"Thank you." I turn the pages of her book, looking for plants I might recognize. "Cannabis," I grin. "We used to grow this on the Ark with the solar fields. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to keep the teenagers out of it. I caught two boys breaking into the storage room once. I was breaking in too, so it was a mutual agreement we wouldn't say anything." I close the book and hand it back to her, a sour taste in my mouth. "Not that that really mattered in the end. All three of us got caught and ended up down here."

"I thought you were caught for murder?" Althea puts her book back in her bag, then pulls out a knife and starts hunting through the grass. She uses the knife to whack at something in the weeds, then proudly produces a yarrow plant. 

I look through the field too. "I was. I was stealing drugs to use in the murder, although at the time I hadn't decided I was going to use them to kill him."

She wipes sweat from her brow. "What was it like? Living up there with the stars?"

I smile. "It was gorgeous. The sunrises are so different down here. On the Ark, sunrises were like watching the power of the sun. Watching the Earth move out of its way like it was afraid. But down here, it's like art. The sky just lights up with color and keeps changing, then fades into blue. It's all softness. No violence."

"That's a really beautiful way of putting it," she smiles. "All softness. No violence." She adds another plant to her collection. "I wish that's what life was like down here."

I cut a plant I'm pretty sure is yarrow. "I was under the impression the violence is our fault," I say sheepishly.

Althea waves me off. "I wish it was just a recent thing. No, the clans have been warring with each other on and off for my entire life, and for decades before that. It's mostly a power struggle, which is why we have the Commander, to lead us all to peace and to keep us all in line, but it just doesn't really work that way, unfortunately." She gazes at her little girl, who is ripping up grass and letting it fall over her legs. "I just want her to have a different life."

"Maybe she will," I smile hopefully. "Nothing's set in stone yet. She's only little."

Althea frowns. "No. It pretty much is."

I look back at the pile we have. "Is this enough?"

She looks back too, dusting off her hands and sheathing her knife. "Yeah, I think so."

We walk back to our bags and take a moment to drink before bundling up the yarrow to make it easier to carry back. 

"Here," Althea tosses me a smaller woven bag from her own. "Put it in there." She calls to her daughter, who blissfully ignores her. "Alright fine." She shoulders her bag and starts to walk. "I guess I'll leave you here."

"No!" Iris starts to cry, hurrying to catch up. " _Nomi_! _No_ _mi_!"

I look it Althea. " _Nomi_?" 

"It means mother in Trigedasleng," she clarifies. " _Nomi's_ just joking, she won't leave you. Be careful!"

At the 'be careful' Iris trips, faceplanting into the dirt.

"Oh, it's okay, _fyucha_. You're okay," Althea coos, coming to pick up her daughter, who's started crying and reaching for her mom. "Oh no. No, no, no."

I jog to catch up with them. "What's wrong?"

"No!" Althea says, pushing me away. "Go!"

I step back, surprised. "Go? Why?"

"Because I said!" Althea holds Iris in her lap, cradling her head, turning away from me. "It'll be okay. Let me look at that."

"Is she hurt?"

"It's just a scraped knee," she brushes me off. "It's nothing that concerns you."

"Well if it's just a scraped knee, I have some bandages. Or at least I think so. Clarke gave me a first aid kit before I left." 

Althea sighs. "Could you find them for me?"

I find the case and carry it over to her, peeking at the injury. "I don't get it. She's not even bleeding. She's got some mud or something on her knee, but nothing that can't be washed off."

Althea looks up sharply at me. "Do you see any mud? Have you seen any rain in the last two weeks?" She digs around in the box for a strip of gauze. She brushes the hair out of her face so she can see what she's doing. "She is bleeding."

"She is?" I kneel down closer. "I still don't see it."

"That," she points to her knee. Something black, almost oily looking, drips from the torn skin. "That's blood."

I'm in awe. "You guys have black blood on Earth? Is that an evolutionary advantage you've developed to survive the radiation? Embryos used to be genetically selected to alter our radiation tolerance. What with the solar radiation of space and all that. But our blood is still red. What makes yours black?"

" _Mine_ isn't." She wraps the gauze around Iris's knee. "They're called _natblieda_. It means nightblood. The rumor is that a hundred years ago a woman named Becca Pramheda fell from the sky in an area now called Polis – our capital – and she had black blood. She was the first heir of the Flame. She was the first Commander."

"Well that's got to be a cool trait. To have the same blood as the first Commander." I pinch Iris cheek playfully. "You're practically royalty."

"It's not a good thing." Althea holds Iris close, gently rocking side to side with her to soothe her crying, and kisses her forehead. "Scouts come around to each clan and collect the nightblood children and raise them in the temple in the city, far away from their parents, and raise them to be killers. 'The blood of the Commanders is your blood', they tell them. And then they put all the novitiates in a ring and have them fight to the death until one remains, even if they're as young as ten. 'That's how the Flame chooses who will be the next Commander.' It's sick. I don't want her to be any part of it."

I was no stranger to the violence the other clans could produce, but then, so could we. But I never imagined them pitting kids against each other. "Oh."

"Yeah." Althea laughs dryly. "Oh." She grabs my wrist, her fingernails digging into my skin. "You can't tell anyone. Not even Skaikru. No one. They'll find out. They'll take her."

I take her hand. "I won't. I promise."

"Swear it."

"I swear it. This stays between us."

Althea takes a shaky breath and stands up. "Good." She wipes her eyes. "I suppose we should be off then. It'll be getting dark soon by the time you get back to your camp. You shouldn't be out in the woods alone after dark. We should hurry."

By the time I make it back to camp the moon is already out and a good deal of the stars are too. I tried to hurry, I really did, but the trip back home is different in low light, and I can't stop thinking about what Althea said. How could these people think that is an acceptable thing to do? How did they come up with the idea to do it in the first place? 

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd left us for good," Raven says, sitting down beside me by the fire, her damaged leg stretched out in front of her. She'd been working on different prototypes of braces, and the current model didn't bend very much. 

"No," I say. I had my book out in front of me and a slightly wilted yarrow plant lying in the dirt. I was no artist, so I planned to leave the drawing work to Clarke, but I could do the description and list of uses. Long skinny stem, few leaves, bunches of small white flowers at the top. Slows wound bleeding, relieves heavy menstrual bleeding/pain, improves circulation, lowers blood pressure, GI ailments. "I was gathering plants with Althea – TonDc's apothecary – and we went farther than I thought we would."

"Did she give you that too?" Raven points to the book. "It's beautiful."

"She did." I brush away eraser shavings. "I wish all Grounders were as kind as her and Lincoln."

Raven hugs her good knee. "I wish being on Earth wasn't this hard. This is where we originate from after all – shouldn't we be made for this? Shouldn't we be able to stop killing each other by now?"

I think back to Althea's dire warning, the death grip she held on my arm. It must be every Earth parent's worst nightmare – to see their children killed in this dangerous world, or worse, by each other. I put my pencil down. "If we could, the world wouldn't have ended."


	5. Five

_**13 weeks 0 days August 21, 2149** _

I tap my pencil against the notebook, trying desperately to come up with a different answer.

It wasn’t like I was the only one. You lock a hundred teenage delinquents in the Sky Box for indeterminate amounts of time, and that equals a lot of pent up hormones. Not to mention the wonderment to know if sex was different on Earth.

It was a miracle I was one of the hundred. I was four days away from my eighteenth birthday and certain execution. 

Now, I had a second chance – but in four days, I’d managed to screw it up.

The summer was fading now, and I hadn’t had a period since May.

June – I blamed stress. They sent us down on June 1st, hoping the beginning of summer would give us enough time to get set up before winter set in. I’d obviously had a huge shift in life, trying to acclimate myself to a foreign world and foreign people. The first month was a struggle not to die of starvation or exposure, or worse, the Grounders.

July came and went, and we’d come to a tumultuous peace. I began to wonder if it was something else. I pushed it off as the new and excessive workload I’d been trying to keep up with – Bellamy was trying to keep us all alive by building walls, shelters, hunting, gathering, and preserving food – but I was just so tired I could barely make it to lunch without taking a nap. I’d try to sneak away to sleep in the dropship, but he occasionally caught me, asking me why I thought I was so special I could sleep while the others worked – but I couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not until I was sure.

August is almost gone. This morning I had a hard time zipping up my pants. I cried. 

I brush escaped wisps of hair out of my face, carefully boiling and stirring a mixture of crushed seeds and water, a recipe for a cough medicine Althea taught me. I don’t know how we’d survive down here without her. Red pigment seeps through the water as the seeds heat.

Clarke pops into the tent. In her hands are bizarrely shaped tubes covered in sand. “Will this work?”

I take one from her, brushing away the sand. It’s glass. “Yeah, this’ll work, but it’s completely unusable in this state.”

She furrows her brow. “Well, obviously. We’re going to melt it down into bottles for the medicines. Jasper wants to do it. He insists he’s something of an artist at blowing glass.” I raise my eyebrows. “That was my reaction. Apparently, he read a Wikipedia article on it once back in 2145.”

“Well he better be, this has to be stored in glass. Summer’s almost over. We can’t sit around hoping lightning will strike the lake bed just right again.”

“Yikes,” Clarke cringes. “It’s not like you’ve ever done it either.”

I rub my forehead, the aching thought gnawing away at me. Clarke was a medical apprentice on the Ark, and the closest thing we have to a doctor down here. She turns to leave with the glass. “Wait.”

“What?”

I suck my teeth. “Can I talk to you?”

She gives a light laugh. “Well, I don’t know, can you?”

“Not here, okay?” The walls of the tents are too thin. “The dropship. Third floor. Clear everyone out of there. This has to stay between us until I’m sure.”

“Sure of what? Are you in some kind of trouble?” she asks.

“Dropship, okay?” I turn back to the bubbling red liquid, adding in more powdered seeds. “I’ll be there after I stir this.”

She nods. “Okay.”

I step out of the tent to see Clarke in the doorway of the dropship, her finger in Bellamy’s chest in an accusing manner. He looks annoyed at best before he sweeps his arm, clearing out everyone in the dropship. Clarke was a natural born leader, and the only person Bellamy would ever consider taking orders from.

I try to walk past him into the dropship, but he sticks his arm out, blocking my way. “Clarke told me to keep everyone out.”

I push past him, unable to look him in the eye, and start climbing the ladder. “I know. I told her to.”

The third floor is smaller than the rest, originally a cargo hold. I seal the door shut behind me. Clarke sits on the floor as the ceiling is too low for her to stand comfortably. I walk hunched over to her spot on the floor.

I wring my hands. “I guess there’s no good way to broach this topic.”

She looks at me expectantly. “What’s got you so worked up?”

My voice cracks halfway through the sentence, both with the realization of reality and the weight that has suddenly been lifted off my shoulders by sharing my fears with someone. “I think I’m pregnant.”

“Oh-kay.” Panic washes over her face before she forces herself to remain cool and attempts to be professional. “When did you last get a period?”

I hug my knees. “On the Ark, back in May. It would’ve been on the 21st, because it was the day of my final hearing.”

“Oh.” Her voice is filled with surprise. “When did – um.”

“Four days after we landed – the one and only time. A bit of a birthday present for myself,” I laugh dryly. “What’s that put me at?”

She looks up, doing the math. “Thirteen weeks exactly. That’s _if_ you’re pregnant. Can I feel your stomach? Lay down.”

I lay down on the dusty floor, and wiggle my jeans down off my hips as directed.

"Thirteen weeks should be far enough for me to feel the fundus. That's the top of the uterus. If you're not pregnant, I won't be able to feel anything because an empty uterus is so small it sits tucked behind the pubic bone." Clarke puts her hand just above the waistband of my underwear, feeling upwards, her hang digging in and pushing downwards again. Her face turns white, the blood draining. She swallows. “You _are_ pregnant.”

I nod, zipping up my jeans, which are becoming uncomfortably tight. “That’s what I thought.” I shake my head. “How am I supposed to tell him? This is not the time or the place for a baby. I can’t imagine he’ll be pleased.”

She prods gently. “Well, who’s the father?”

I laugh weakly. “You just told him to get his ass out of the dropship.”

Her eyes bug out. “BELLAMY?”

I shrug. “You know – it was the whole ‘Whatever the hell we want!’ phase. He was a little bit of a womanizer back then and I mean, it was my eighteenth birthday. I was celebrating not dying. I wanted experience and he wasn’t one to say no." I wring my hands. "I did not expect any of this to happen. I thought I’d wait it out in the Sky Box, turn eighteen, get my review, and whoosh – floated.” My breath is shaky, the thought of raising a baby on Earth far more terrifying than the idea of dying in an empty side room and then tossed into open space. “But this is worse.”

She grabs my shoulders. “No, this isn’t. This is the best thing to happen to you – to all of us. You’re going to be the first person from the Ark to have a baby on the ground in a hundred years. It’s going to solidify the idea that ‘We’re here, we’re on Earth, and we’re going to stay.’ We’ll be officially living here, not just surviving. Because of _you_.”

She’s lying to me, trying to make me feel better. I shake my head, biting the inside of my cheek to keep the swell of emotion down. “I can’t do this.” 

She takes my shoulders. “You can. You absolutely can. I’ll be here every step of the way.”

I crack my knuckles, a nervous habit. “What do you think he’ll say about it?”

“Bellamy?” Clarke smiles. “He’ll be a good dad. Of all the criminals down here, he’s the one I’d pick to be my baby daddy.”

I laugh, blinking away the tears. I wipe my eyes. “I’ll tell him tonight,” I say with finality, a burst of courage running through me. 

Stars light up the night sky, the moon a waxing crescent. I remember the look of it from space, and I ache to go back to a time when things made sense. Smoke rises up from the campfire and I briefly wonder if I should be sitting so close. My hands in my lap, I curl my fingers against my stomach, allowing myself to finally recognize what’s going on inside. I want to tell him privately since I’m not sure how he’ll react, so I’ve been waiting for him to go to his tent. When he finally does, I draw myself away from the evening gathering and muster up every ounce of courage I have.

“Bellamy?” I pause outside the tent. “Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”

He huffs. “Yeah, come in.” I step in the tent and he’s unlacing his boots viciously. Suddenly I’m worried this is a bad time and telling him now will only make his reaction worse. He looks up, his eyes impatient.

“Is this a good time?” I waver, more for me than for him. “I can tell you later.”

He runs his fingers through his sweaty hair, pulling apart the curls. “No, just tell me whatever you have to tell me now.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while now, but I wasn’t sure, so I waited, but this morning I was finally brave enough to talk to Clarke about it and she agrees, but you have to promise not to be mad at me because it is not my fault only and I don’t think I can do this if you hate me –”

“Morgan. Spit it out.”

“I’m,” my lips draw back, struggling to get the next word out as his eyes bore into me. “Pregnant,” I say softly. “You’re the only one I’ve been with, so it has to be yours.”

He looks like I’ve just slapped him. His voice is barely audible. “Really?” His tone is almost accusatory.

I nod, a sour feeling rising in my throat. “Do you hate me now?"

He puts his head in his hands. “Don’t you know what we’ve got going on right now? Kids have gone missing from all clans, which I thought we wouldn’t have to worry about, since there are none here – yet.” His words sting. “Azgeda is taking territory from all clans and assassinating warriors. I don't know what they're trying to stir up. Trikru doesn’t want to share the farmland, and I don’t blame them. And that’s just the problems with the Grounders, never mind the fact that we’re going into winter without a single permanent structure, just a handful of blankets and furs for seventy-six of us,” he gestures at my stomach, “correction, seventy-seven. Food is getting thin too, so we can’t support you with extra.” He stands up, pacing. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, terminate? It was routine on the Ark, I’m sure Clarke knows how to do one.”

My throat is tight at the suggestion. It’s not his decision. It’s mine. I look him in the eye and force myself to settle down enough to get the words out, my voice small and steady. “She’s attended births too. I am having this baby, and you can be involved in its life or not,” I say, storming out of the tent.

Most of the camp has gone to bed. Only the Guard and a few others are still awake. I’m grateful. The moment I leave Bellamy’s tent the tears pour down my face in hot, salty streams. I wipe away at them furiously, trying to see. I can’t believe I let Clarke talk me into thinking he’d be okay with this.

Murphy lounges at the edge of the fire, throwing in twigs, mostly for his own amusement. “Geez, Morgan. What’s got your panties in a twist? Bellamy turn you down tonight?”

“Shut the hell up, Murphy.”

I stumble into the tent I share with Raven and Harper, collapsing on my bed, the weight of trying to keep myself together between Bellamy’s tent and mine crushing me. I break out into full on sobbing, and despite my best efforts to stay quiet, Raven stirs. “Hey,” she whispers. “What’s wrong?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to get the words out, but only succeed in crying harder. 

“Come here,” she says, opening the blankets, inviting me in. She reaches out and smacks Harper on the arm. “Wake up.”

Harper rubs her eyes. Her voice is groggy with sleep. “What do you want?”

“Morgan needs some love. It’s cuddle puddle time.”

I take off my boots and crawl in beside Raven, who scoots to the edge of her bed. Harper crawls in beside me, although I’m not sure she’s really even awake right now. The bed is barely big enough for two, much less three grown adults. I take a breath, pretending that here, in the dark, I’m alone. I can’t see their faces, or their reactions, and that makes it a little easier. “I went to see Bellamy tonight.”

Raven’s voice is gentle. “And?”

“And he did not react well to me telling him I’m pregnant.”

“No,” Raven gasps. “Are you really?”

I pick at my cuticles. “I haven’t had a period since May, so you tell me. Clarke said she can feel my uterus and apparently you can't unless there's a baby in there.” I turn to the sound of her voice, barely able to make out the outline of her face. “Are you going to lecture me on all the reasons why that’s such a big problem? I’ve already heard that speech once today, like I didn’t already know. Like it’s my fault.”

“No,” Raven says kindly, laying her head on my shoulder. “I was going to tell you I’m happy for you.”

“Happy? This is _insane_.”

“Yeah,” Harper pipes in. “I think we could use some new little feet running around camp.” 

It’s ridiculous of them to pretend this is a joyful time. But the good intention is there, and it feels nice to imagine a scenario where this isn’t such a bad thing. “Thanks guys.”

“So, Bellamy’s the daddy, huh?” Harper asks.

“Yeah.” I choke out a laugh. “The one and only time I have sex, just to try it out, I get knocked up.”

Raven attempts to lighten the mood. “I don’t blame you. I had a piece of that sweet ass myself when I got down here.”

I grin. “Yeah, it was pretty nice.”

“Wow, you guys are making me feel like I’ve missed out,” Harper says. “I did it with Murphy once while we were in the Sky Box,” she giggles. “Does that count?”

“I don’t believe that,” Raven says.

“It’s true!” she laughs in the dark. “I snuck into the boy’s showers and met him there.”

I roll my eyes. “How’d you get around the guards?” 

“I might’ve paid off Miller’s dad.”

My eyes adjusting to the dark, Raven and I look at each other open mouthed.

“I didn’t know he was his dad at the time!” Harper explains.

“Was it worth it?” 

“Hell yeah, it was worth it, Raven. Nine out of ten.”

“But not ten,” Raven clarifies.

“I mean we were sixteen,” Harper says. “Neither of us were that good.” Harper pokes my arm. “You should give Murphy a try.”

“Give Murphy a _try_?”

“I mean it’s not like you can get more pregnant. Might as well take advantage and sample what’s out there.”

“I think the next time I have sex I want it to be with someone I love. I think I’d like it better with feelings.” I stare up at the ceiling of the tent, it’s blue and red and white stripes nearly indistinguishable. “I guess this means my implant is garbage.”

“Yeah that thing is a piece of shit,” Harper agrees.

Raven lays an arm across her forehead. “I’m just realizing there’s going to be a day when all our implants fail.”

Harper counts in her head. “I’ve got eight years left on mine.”

“I think I have seven.”

I try to think back to when I had my implant placed. They’re good for ten years, and if I remember right, I had mine placed in 2147. “I had eight, too.” I look down at my stomach, barely more than extra fat at this point, completely covered in blankets. But it’s in there. It’s real. It’s happening. “And here we are.”

A beat and then from Harper: “Can I touch it?”

“There’s barely anything to touch,” I tell her, “but yeah. Go ahead.”

A hand from each side of me comes to rest on my belly. 

“Here we are,” Harper agrees.


	6. Six

**_13 weeks 1 day August 22, 2149_ **

“Harper!” 

I rub my eyes, trying to find the source of the sound. Raven’s snuggled up to my back and Harper’s hair is stuck to my cheek where I slept on it. I brush it away and wait for a reaction, but she’s still dead to the world. I push her slightly. “Harper.”

Monroe pops her head in the tent. “McIntyre!”

I push on Harper again. This time she rolls onto her back and yawns. “What?”

“You’re late,” Monroe says. “Bellamy’s party leaves for Polis at dawn, remember?”

Harper groans and rolls out of bed. 

“Bellamy’s?” I yawn again. “I thought Clarke was going to Polis for the summit.”

“Clarke’s staying here now.” 

I shake my head. “He’s supposed to be leading the scouting trip to Mount Weather tomorrow.”

“It’s been canceled.” Harper rolls out of bed and reaches for her shoes, leaving a warm spot where she once was. Monroe shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. I just know that he woke me up this morning and told me he was going in Clarke’s place.”

“Well,” I say, pretending not to be too concerned. “There must be good reason.”

Bellamy’s voice rings out across camp. “Come on now, Harper. You’re the one we’re waiting on.”

Harper slings her gun across her shoulder and ducks out the tent. “Bye, guys.”

Bellamy is the worst diplomat ever.

“He made you switch places with him, didn’t he?” I ask, more angry now than anything else. I’ve had time to stew on the topic all morning. “He left because of me, didn’t he?”

Clarke tests the temperature of the freshly sterilized knife. It was a fancy one from the med kit they sent us down with. I’m glad she has an actual surgical scalpel for this and not one of those sharpened metal points the rest of them are calling knives. “He told me he needed the time to clear his head, and negotiating at the summit would be a good distraction. He didn’t say why.”

“I knew it. I fucking knew it. I told you he’d be furious with me.”

Clarke looks at me, exasperated. “Morgan.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know why I ever let you convince me he’d be okay with it. I know it’s terrible timing, but it’s not my fault the implant failed, and he’s acting like it is.”

“He’s panicked,” Clarke says, pushing up my sleeve. She feels around my inner upper arm for the stiff plastic rod. “You’ve had thirteen weeks to come to terms with what’s happening. He’s had thirteen hours. Give him some time.” Her fingers find the implant. She swabs it with Monty’s moonshine, which is so strong it might as well be antiseptic. “Okay, I’ve got it. Here we go.”

The scalpel slices into my arm and I really wish they’d sent more local anesthetic down with us. Clarke used all they sent getting the bullet out of Raven’s spine. I bite down on my free hand. I need to find a way to make more.

Clarke holds up a bloody white rod about two inches long. “Bingo.”

“So that’s it, huh?” I say, turning the implant over in my hand. “That’s the little bitch that betrayed me?”

Clarke binds my arm in bandages to stop the bleeding. “Yep, that’s what’ll give you your most precious gift of all in six months.”

I drop the implant on the tray. “Maybe I’ll feel different about it when I can feel it moving. It’s hard to be excited with Bellamy being such a dick about it.”

Clarke ties a knot in the bandage. “Bellamy’s done a lot of stupid things in the name of protecting the people he loves. I don’t imagine he’ll be any different with his child.”

I sit up and flex my fingers on my now very sore arm. “I hope so. I don’t care what he thinks about me, I just want him to be there for the baby.”

“He will be,” Clarke reassures. “Just give it some time. He may be an entirely different person when he returns.” 


	7. Seven

_**14 weeks 4 days September 1, 2149** _

My arm and opinion of Bellamy still bruised, I make the trip to TonDc alone, looking for the one person on this planet who might understand what I’m going through right now.

By the time I reach the apothecary shop, I’ve been stewing on what a dick Bellamy is being for too long, and the door takes the brute of my anger.

With dark circles under her eyes and hair in a frizzy braid, Althea is crouched next to the playpen, her arm stuck through the bars, brushing back Iris’s curls. “I could kill you.” She doesn’t stop her tender touch, running a finger down Iris’s cheek and rubbing her back. “I mean it. I’m actually considering killing you right now. She was almost asleep.”

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, slamming the door shut.

She sits up suddenly. “You’re what?”

“That’s right.” I throw my bag on the floor. “Three and a half months. Clarke and I did the math, due date’s February 25th.” My hands go to my hair, gripping the roots. I double over, anger fading into fear, and slide down the wall until I’m sitting with my head in my hands. “I can’t fucking do this. I can’t have a baby here.”

Althea stands by the playpen, unsure of what to say. “Well,” she looks down at her drowsy toddler, “I did it.”

“But you’re you! You’ve lived on post-nuclear Earth all your life. You don’t know anything else.” My lip trembles. A cry works its way up from somewhere deep, unable to be stopped. “I can’t.”

She sits down next to me, her hand on my shoulder. “Sure, you can.”

“My entire clan is made of teenagers,” I choke out, trying to work the anger back up to stop me from crying. “How are they supposed to help me?” I wipe my eyes, still blurry from tears. “I’m supposed to have my mom with me, and a real doctor, not one who did part of her training and then got arrested for treason. I’m supposed to have someone who loves me always by my side.” I throw my hands in the air. “But I don’t have any of that.”

She takes my hand. “You have me. I know it’s scary, and I can’t pretend to know how scary it must be in your situation. I had my sister and a midwife, and although her father isn’t around anymore, I had him too. But you have me,” she promises. “We’ll be okay. I’ve done all the things you’re about to do, except two years before you. I’ll be there to guide you through everything.”

I throw my arms around her and cry into her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“What about the baby’s father?” she asks gently. “Is he on the Ark?”

“No,” I wipe my hands on my jeans. “He’s down here. But he’s being a total ass.”

Althea sits down next to me against the wall. “Is he, now? Want me to punch him?”

“No,” I smile, the tears on my cheeks drying sticky. “But thanks. Wait, did you say a midwife delivered Iris?”

“She did,” Althea nods slowly.

“Can you take me to her? Do you think she’ll help me too?”

“I think she would,” Althea says slowly, “but she’s dead, and she didn’t have any apprentices yet, so we’re fresh out of midwives.”

I roll my head back against the wall. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You can do this,” she reassures, rubbing circles in my back. “A doctor who did part of her training is better than someone who did none at all. Once labor starts your body takes over anyway. You’re designed to be able to do it all by yourself if you have to.”

My hands fall to my lap. “It’s not like we’ll even live that far into winter. We probably won’t even make it to February.”

“Hey,” Althea scolds. “Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”

I look over at her. “Yeah. I do.”

She stands up, offering me her hand. “Until you’re dead –”

“Your life is not ruined beyond repair,” I finish, taking her hand and pulling myself up. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Let’s do something else,” she offers. She walks me over to the counter and plops me down on a stool. She pulls a woven burlap sack of something from underneath it. “I can to teach you how to make medicine from corn silk. You can use it for all kinds of bladder problems. . .” 

I can’t say my mind was with us for that lesson. 


	8. Eight

_**16 weeks 4 days September 15, 2149** _

After more than three weeks, Bellamy, Harper, Monroe, and Logan return home. Bellamy finds Clarke soon after, to talk about what happened at the meeting in Polis with Lexa, I presume, and then I don’t see him until that evening, after dinner.

I sit next to Raven on a log by the fire. The nights are cooling down now, and my fitted jacket won’t zip much longer. I’ve already given up on buttoning my pants, now living solely on the grace of the zipper. 

Clarke and Bellamy stride out from her tent and come to stand in front of the fire.

Clarke surveys the crowd. “I’m sure you’ve all been waiting to hear the news from Polis. Bellamy went in my place to meet with Lexa to negotiate the terms of a treaty with the other twelve clans. Trikru has agreed to giving us one-quarter of their farmland to the south.”

“The southern farmland has been overfarmed,” Monty speaks up. “How are we supposed to grow anything on it next year? It takes time to recover.”

“It’s the best I could do, Monty,” Bellamy says. “It’s better than nothing.”

“Hardly,” Monty grumbles.

“Lexa also gave permission for us to attempt to open Mount Weather. Now, if there are supplies to be found, they’re in that bunker. She says it’s been locked for as long as anyone can remember, but I told her we have a certain mechanic who can get around that.” His eyes flit to Raven, then land on me. His expression darkens. “She says if we can get the bunker open, it’s ours, which solves our problem of shelter for the winter. But we should remember the mountain is on Trikru territory, and as such, one half of the supplies will go to them. We’ll get first pick.”

“One half?!” A voice says incredulously.

“Yes,” Bellamy says firmly, as a father would reprimanding his child. I put my head in my hands.

Another voice asks from the crowd, “What about Azgeda?” 

“Azgeda is still being Azgeda. Still grappling for power,” Bellamy sighs. “It’s not our fight. We just need to be careful and trust Heda to handle this.” Bellamy looks at Clarke, as if to confirm this is the case. But Clarke wasn’t in Polis, Bellamy was. What are they not telling us? 

“There’s also something Bellamy wants to announce,” Clarke says, but the look on Bellamy’s face betrays her. “It’s something I think some of you may have been beginning to suspect, and since it impacts all of us, I think it’s important you’re told outright.” She gestures to him and steps back, giving him the floor. “Bellamy.”

“I – uh,” Bellamy runs his hand across his forehead. My stomach churns, my brain suddenly jumping to the worst possibilities. Are we about to be under attack? Do we have to move our camp? Did Bellamy just royally screw us over at the meeting in Polis? Suddenly his eyes meet mine for the first time in three weeks. “Morgan.”

My voice squeaks. “What?”

“Come up here.”

The blood drains from my face. Suddenly I know what he’s about to announce. I stand up, my fists clenched to keep my hands from shaking. I always knew this day would come eventually – otherwise I’d just suddenly start walking around camp with a baby – but I didn’t expect it to be today. 

His eyes fall to my stomach as I come closer, the fabric of my jacket now clinging to it. I stand beside him, my arms behind my back to mask my shaking hands, and look out at the seventy-four faces I’m about to disappoint or worse, anger.

“Morgan is pregnant,” he says matter-of-factly. “And it’s mine.”

The camp is silent.

Suddenly, Jasper breaks out into a fit of laughter. 

Bellamy takes a step forward. “What’s so funny?”

Jasper’s face falls. “Oh, man. You’re serious?”

“This isn’t a joke, Jasper.”

A beat and then, “Well, I think this man deserves a drink!” Jasper grabs a bottle of moonshine and raises it. “To the happy couple!”

“Oh, we’re not –,” I start.

Bellamy puts an arm around my waist, grinning. Jasper passes to bottle to Bellamy, who takes a drink and grins. He raises the bottle. “To all of us. To the outcasts, the criminals, the delinquents, to the pioneers of Earth. Today we stop surviving. Today, we _thrive_.”

Cheers rise up from around the campfire. It was _not_ the reaction I was expecting. 

When the crowd is distracted with the booze Jasper is freely distributing, I turn to Bellamy, moving out from under his embrace. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Bellamy looks over his shoulder, grabs my arm, and leads me away from the group to the edge of the tree line. This far out from the fire, his face loses the joyous glow it had. “We are not a couple, and you were not excited when I broke the news to you. So not excited that you told me to terminate, remember that? Then you just walked off for three weeks.”

“Listen, that was wrong of me to say, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I left, too, but, as you probably already realized, that was a huge bomb dropped on me. I’m trying to keep everyone alive here and twenty-six people have already died under my care.” He runs a hand over his face. “This is adding another life, and I can barely take care of the ones that are here now. Not to mention that no matter how much you don’t want to, but the farther you get into the pregnancy, the more you’ll slow down and other people will have to pick up the slack. It’s not fair to them.”

I cross my arms. “I understand that, but we can’t go back in time, Bellamy. We have to face up to what happened and deal with it.”

He nods. “I see that now. I’m sorry I was a jerk about it. But I’m going to face up to it like you said.” He laughs shakily. “I’m going to be a dad.” He reaches out, taking my hand. “We’re going to be parents.”

I take a step back, pulling my hand back. “Co-parents.”

Bellamy glances back at the party. “They need this, Morgan. Look at them.” Harper shares a shy smile with Monty over a cup of moonshine. Raven jabs at Murphy’s side, making him crack a smile. Clarke talks with Lincoln and Octavia, who must’ve come sometime between the announcement and pulling Bellamy aside. Clarke must tell her the news because Octavia’s jaw drops and I can hear her excited squeal from here. “They need the joy. Whether or not they realize it, everyone’s world is about to change.”

“It’s been changing since the Ark sent us down here to die.” I look up at the sky, at the twinkling white of stars. Somewhere, the Ark orbits Earth endlessly, though no one is left to pilot it. “Look who’s laughing now.”

“Still, which is a better story to sell? Two young people who found love on a strange planet become a family of three, or two strangers who found themselves with an unplanned pregnancy on a planet that is constantly trying to kill them?”

I cross my arms. “What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying, in front of people, we’re together. If we look unified despite insurmountable odds, they’ll stay unified. Behind closed doors, we can be whatever you want.”

“And, what?” I shake my head. “Are we supposed to do that for the rest of our lives? What if we fall in love with someone else?”

“If one of us falls in love with someone else, we can have an amicable public breakup. Problem solved.”

“Fine.” I move to return to the fire, but he grabs my arm. “What?”

“You can’t tell anyone this isn’t real.”

“They’re our people, Bellamy. We live with them. I can’t help it if they figure out this is all a sham to give them false hope.”

“This is about more than just our people.”

I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean – I need –,” he stammers. “You’ll be doing us all a favor if you’ll play along.”

I shake my head. “But why?”

“I might be able to negotiate for better farmland and hunting gr–”

I walk away. This is insane.

“Morgan!”

“You’re going to use me, and your _child_ , for political gain?” I whisper-yell. 

“I’m going to use you and my child to help us survive, yeah, I am. Is that so wrong? Do you want to starve this winter? If you starve,” he points to my stomach, “they starve.”

“Of course I don’t want that.”

“Then you need to lower your voice, sweetheart, because if our people realize this is fake,” he points to the woods, “they will realize it’s fake. What they’ve given us won’t support seventy-six people through this winter. Maybe next winter if we have crops stored, but we won’t make it to next winter. Not unless there’s some miracle store of unperishable food inside Mount Weather.”

I run my fingers through my hair and take a deep breath, trying to quiet the rage swirling within me. I’m not a pawn to be used in this game of political chess. But at the same time, if it would increase our chances of survival, of the baby’s survival, would it be worth it? “Are things really that bad?”

Bellamy sighs heavily. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

"Okay,” I concede. “I’ll do it. But this is just for public appearances. Behind closed doors we’re still just two separate people who just happen to be having a baby. That’s it.”

“That’s fine,” Bellamy agrees. He looks me in the eye, letting me know he really means it. “Thank you.”

“So,” I say, holding out my hand. I nod to the celebration. “Shall we?”


	9. Nine

_**16 weeks 5 days September 16, 2149** _

Bellamy flings a bug off a stem. “Which one is this?”

I look up from my book briefly. “The bug or the herb?”

He cracks a smile. “The herb.”

I go back to writing in my book. “It’s rosemary.”

“It smells good,” he notes.

“It does,” I agree. Bellamy had followed me around all morning, and now he was in the pharma tent with his shoes on one of the wooden stumps I use as a chair, not really doing much of anything other than getting on my nerves. I’d already begun to regret my decision. I close my book. “Are you going to do this for the next five months?”

“Do what?”

“This.” I walk over to his side of the table and swat his feet off my chair. “Follow me around. Invade my workspace. Put your feet on my furniture.”

He lowers a rosemary stem he was playing with. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“Anything!” I say, exasperated. “Go gather firewood, or work on the fence, or something. Do whatever you were doing before yesterday.”

“We can’t go back to before yesterday. We can’t go back to June.”

I put an elbow in the table and lean my head into my hand. “I think I’m going to go crazy with this fake lovers thing.”

“It’s just in public,” he reassures me.

“But you’re here, in private.”

“I can’t just ignore you all day and then be a doting boyfriend in the evenings. It won’t look real.”

“Fine,” I huff. My bag, still packed from last week’s trip to TonDc, lays on the table. I pull out a roll of twine I got from Althea and start cutting it into lengths. “If you’re going to stay, you’re going to work.” I grab a handful of rosemary. “Stack them together in bundles like this and tie them here.”

Maybe if I distract myself enough the time will go by faster.

He wraps a few bundles and helps me hang them from the ceiling to dry. “I don’t think you should make the trips to TonDc by yourself anymore.”

“I’ve been doing it for weeks,” I say, reaching him another bundle to hang. “I manage just fine.”

“For now,” he says. “But what if one day you don’t?”

“When I can’t do the trips anymore Althea is going to come here,” I tell him. “I worked it out with her last week. It was actually her suggestion.”

“No,” Bellamy turns to me. “I mean, what if one day you leave camp and you don’t come home?”

I pause. “Why would I not come home?”

“It’s not safe.”

“What’s not safe?” I ask. “I thought Azgeda was targeting the warriors and clan leaders. I don’t see how taking out a pregnant eighteen-year-old girl is going to further their agenda.”

“If you’re going to be my girlfriend, and I’m one of the leaders of Skaikru. . .”

I nod, realizing what he means. “They’ll kill me to get to you.”

“Exactly.” He turns back to hanging up the rosemary. “I want Miller to go with you.”

“Althea’s not going to go for that.”

“Why not?”

“She’s got her reasons,” I shrug. 

“Whatever her reasons are surely she cares more about you traveling safely.”

“Oh no, she doesn’t, believe me. She likes me just fine, but not that much.”

“He doesn’t have to sit in with you. He can stay outside or wait at the gate or something.”

“He’s not going to like that.”

“I don’t really give a damn about what he likes.” Bellamy sits down on the stump next to me. “You’re going to be safe and he’s one of the best guards we have.”

“I know,” I say. “I always knew he’d be a great guard. But I don’t think you understand. He hates me. He’s not going to go.”

“Oh no,” Bellamy shakes his head, laughing. “I don’t think you understand. He’s going. I’ll take care of all that.”

"I murdered a man in front of him, Bellamy," I deadpan. "That's what I did to get sent down here." His blank face says more than words ever could. "You didn't know that, did you?"

"No," he says quietly.

"He wasn't really even a man," I shake my head. "He was just a kid. Most of the hundred are older than he was. He thinks I'm a terrible person and wants absolutely nothing to do with me. I don't blame him."

"We can't change the past," he says, softly and without malice. I almost wish he'd yell at me. He makes it sound like I it was a simple mistake, as if I'd done something so harmless as forget my keycard. "We have to live in the now, and Miller is going to realize that one way or another."


	10. Ten

**_17 weeks 5 days September 23, 2149_ **

“Okay, everyone all set?” Clarke stands at the gate of our camp – which we should really get around to naming – a pack slung over one shoulder, a gun on the other. A small crowd has gathered in front of her including myself, Bellamy, Raven, Monty, and Harper. The trip to Mount Weather will be a day’s journey, possibly more depending on how long it takes to gather the supplies and check the integrity of the mountain. “Then we’re off,” she confirms.

Seven hours of hiking and about the same number of blisters on my feet later and I’ve fallen a bit behind the rest of the group, tired already, and Bellamy’s fallen just behind a bit as well.

“You keep tugging at your shirt,” he comments. 

I pull my shirt down again, the pressure of my growing stomach making it ride up. “Yeah, well, nothing fits anymore. Not my jeans, not my shirts, not my jacket.”

“Do we have anything else? From, you know, the others?”

“Gee, why didn’t I think of taking the slightly bigger clothes of our dead compadres?” I roll my eyes. “Sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to do that yet.”

“You’ll have to do it eventually.”

I gasp in mock surprise. “You mean I’m going to get bigger than this?”

“Look, I get that you’re still mad at me. But if we’re going to make this work, if we’re going to sell this, you’re going to have to lighten up a bit.”

“I still think it’s ridiculous,” I mumble. “How are we supposed to sell this anyway? We’ve been down here four months and other than that one night – which I’m sure no one else was paying attention to since they were all off doing the same – we’ve basically just been acquaintances. And now we’re suddenly in love overnight?”

“I’ve been gone for three weeks, so let’s hope everyone has forgotten about the actual nature of our relationship,” Bellamy says. “As far as how we sell this, we could just do little touches maybe? I could hold your hand?” He holds out his hand. 

I take it begrudgingly. 

“You could smile at me once in a while,” he offers.

“You could not be a dick once in a while,” I counter. “And while you’re at it, keep yours far away from me.”

He cracks a smile, and then suddenly I do too.

“A little late but duly noted,” he laughs.

“Come on you two,” Clarke calls back. “We’re almost there. We need to stay together.”

“Coming,” I call back, jogging to catch up to the rest of them.

The others stand at the edge of the woods, a clearing in front of us.

“So, this is it, huh?” Monty says, taking in the view of the massive arch of the door of Mount Weather.

I turn to Raven. “So how does it open?”

“What’re you looking at me for? I just got here too.”

“Well, you’re the engineer.”

“No,” she corrects me. “I’m the mechanic.”

“Same thing,” I shrug.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s really not.”

“So, you’re telling me you can’t figure out how to open the door?”

She throws her pack on the ground. “Well, I never said that.” 

While Raven and Monty examine the door, I sit down in the shade of a tree and drink. The words ‘Mount Weather Complex’ are written in capital letters on the archway, as strong and as bold as the mountain itself. I think about what the final race to the door must’ve been like, wondering how many died, begging and clawing to be let inside.

“We’ve got a problem,” Raven reports, picking up her bag.

“What’s that?” Clarke asks.

“That door,” Monty points, “is not going to open without some help.”

“Alright,” Bellamy says, rising to his feet. 

“Sit down, daddy boy,” Raven waves him off. “Brute force won’t help us. We’re going to need another bomb, like the one we used to blow the bridge.” 

“But we need to be careful,” Monty warns. “We could damage the door beyond repair if we use too much, or waste the rest of the hydrazine if we don’t get the calculations right. We’re going to have to cut our losses and go home and do some math.”

Harper plops down. “I am not walking back home today.”

“We’ll set up camp here,” Bellamy agrees. “Set up the tents. I’ll start gathering firewood.”

Clarke pulls a tent out of her pack and starts to unroll it.

“I’ll help you,” I offer.

With enough distance between us and the others, Clarke whispers, “Bellamy told me about the plan you two have.”

“He did? When?”

“The day after the party. It’s a bold move, to try suddenly try to convince everyone you’re madly in love when you’re already four months pregnant.” She ties long sticks together to hold up the tent. “But if it means we get to eat this winter and gives the others something to be hopeful for, I think it’s a smart move.”

“It's a bold move,” I agree, “considering the first words out of his mouth when I told him were that I should terminate. But I don’t want to do that, even if we did have medical equipment and a sterile environment. I don’t know if it’s brave or stupid to attempt to have a baby in a world like this, I just know that I want to try.”

“That’s your call,” Clarke says. “You know that I’ll support you every step of the way.” She grins. “I guess it’s a good thing I had just finished my obstetrics rotation when I got arrested.”

“I was about to give a presentation on intravenous anesthesia. I hope that’s not a sign I’ll need a C-section,” I joke.

Clarke looks grave. “I hope not.”

Bellamy comes back with an armload of firewood and throws it down in a pile, then gets to work at lighting it. Harper follows just behind with a second load of firewood and a handful of kindling. 

“Let’s get this tent up, shall we?” Raven says, coming over to join us. She bends down to pick up the fabric, stretching her bad leg out to the side. She lowers her voice. “Anyone want to tell me what the hell that was about last week?”

“What?”

“You know,” Raven says. “How you went from crying in my bed four weeks ago because Bellamy didn’t take the news well to holding hands with him and sticking by his side all night at the party? I feel like I've hardly seen you alone since then.”

I share a silent look with Clarke.

“It’s all fake, isn’t it?”

“No, the baby’s real,” I say, “But the relationship. . .” I trail.

“Not so much?”

“No,” I agree. “Not so much.”

“Do I get to know why?”

“Listen Raven,” I put a hand on her shoulder. “The less people that know what’s going on, the better. For all of us.”

“Fine,” she throws her hands up. “Leave me in the dark. But I’m telling Harper so she doesn’t think your meltdown was all for show.”

“You can tell her,” I agree. “But you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else.”

“I promise,” she agrees.

Later that night, by the fire, Bellamy comes to sit down beside of me. 

“Tea?” he offers.

“Tea?” I wrap my fingers around the warm metal cup. “How did you make tea?”

“Octavia brought me some leaves once and taught me where to find them. It’s mint. There’s bushes right over there.” He points to the edge of the clearing.

“I hope we get the doors open,” I say, taking a sip. I don’t like the taste, but it’s warm. “As much as I’ve tried to embrace the camper’s lifestyle, I don’t think I’m cut out for raising babies in the wilderness.”

“Sure, you can,” he says. “The Grounders have been doing it for years.”

“The apothecary I’ve been working with has a kid."

“Oh?”

“I don’t know how Althea does it,” I shake my head. “She told me about some of the things that sometimes happens to kids down here. None of them good.”

“We’ll protect them,” he looks at me solemnly, and I can tell he means it. “We’ll keep them safe, and you too. Nothing will happen to you two.”

“You can’t promise that.”

He takes my hand. “Yes. I can.”

A bit overwhelmed with the tone of the conversation and the hand holding, I put my cup down. “I’m going to bed.”

“I already made your bed up,” Bellamy says. “It’s ready for you.”

“You made my bed?”

“Yeah,” he says, as though it should be obvious. “In my tent.”

“ _Your_ tent?”

Harper and Monty are sitting on the other side of the fire, completely absorbed in their own conversation. Bellamy gives a look in their direction, and then back at me. _Sell it_.

“Right, well, goodnight then, everyone,” I wave, and walk with Bellamy to his tent. “You could give me a heads up once in a while,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I thought you’d assume it,” he whispers. “Don’t worry though. I made you a separate bed on the other side of the tent. You can roll over and not even look at me if that’s what you want.”

“I want to be truthful with them.” Bellamy holds open the tent flap and somehow the gesture just sets me off even more. He steps inside after me, and I look up at him in the dim glow of the firelight outside, and alone, I see his face fall, losing the joy it'd had.

I lower my voice, letting the anger fall out of it. “How can you be okay with lying to your own people?”

“I’m not,” he says simply. He sits down on his bed and starts untying his boots, not looking at me.

I sit down on mine, on the other side of the tent. “So let’s tell them the truth. We don’t have to lie.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand how dire this food situation is.” He shrugs off his jacket and folds it on top of his boots. “The simple truth is, despite my efforts in Polis, Lexa was the one who forced Trikru to grant us the southern farmland and the hunting grounds around it. The clans have specific territory they stay in; it helps keep the peace. What they gave us will not allow us to survive winter, plain and simple. If we don’t get more land, we will die.”

“And you think if we tell our people and not the other clans –”

“They’ll find out, think we’re being deceptive, and,” he turns his hands up, stating the obvious. “War.”

I rub my hand over my eyes, letting his words sink in. “I’ll try to be better. I’m sorry I’m no good at this. These past four months have been a lot to take in.”

“It’s not your fault,” he says kindly. “I’ve not been that helpful to your situation, clearly.”

I smile. “Goodnight, Bellamy.”

He smiles back at me, the firelight coming through the tent casting shadows on his face. “Goodnight, Morgan.”


	11. Eleven

_**18 weeks 6 days September 30, 2149** _

By some miracle, early that morning just as dawn breaks, Miller sits with his back to my tent, a gun propped up beside of him and a bag packed. He stares thoughtfully at the dying fire and gives it a poke with a stick, trying to revive it. He turns to look at me when he hears the tent flap open. It’s the first voluntary action he’s done towards me in nine months.

“I’ve been told we’re going to TonDc today.”

“Yeah,” I say, shouldering my bag. “I have plans to meet with Althea. She’s going to teach me about ginseng and milkweed.”

He stands, picking up his gun and bag. “I don’t care what you do. Let’s go.”

I should’ve known it was too much to hope for.

Miller somehow managed to say absolutely nothing for four consecutive hours as we walked to TonDc. I tried starting conversation a couple times, but he instead kept his eyes trained on the path ahead of him as though I wasn’t even there. Now he sat camped out against a tree just outside of the village, as the Trikru people would likely object to someone bringing a gun inside after what happened with Finn.

“You look positively miserable,” Althea observes, leaning over a bowl of milkweed to look at me. 

“Well,” I gesture at my growing belly. “You know how it is.”

“I do,” she muses, “but I wasn’t that uncomfortable that early on. I also wasn’t trying to wear the clothes I was wearing before I was pregnant.”

“No maternity clothes down here,” I explain. “I just have what we were sent down with.”

“Come on.” She closes her book and picks up Iris out of the playpen. “I think I might still have something that would fit you.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To my house,” she says, balancing Iris on her hip. “It’s just a few minutes’ walk from here. I don’t like living so close to everyone with Iris and all.”

I drop the milkweed back in the bowl. “Lead the way.”

Althea’s house is a small, two room cabin with a gabled roof of mismatched colored tin. She’s decorated a pathway with stones and dying plants – probably medicinal – grow in three garden boxes under a window. 

Iris demands to be put down, toddling over to the first of the fall leaves, picking up a particularly dry one and crunching it in her hand, mesmerized as the pieces crumble.

My mind begins to wonder what my little one will look like at that age, all curiosity and clumsiness. I shut down the thought. I don’t want to get too attached to an idea that might not even survive. 

“This is our house,” Althea says, turning the latch on the door and holding it open for me. “Come in.”

The front door opens into the kitchen/dining room. There is an old, old cookstove – probably long predating the bombs – in one corner and a table directly in front of me. There is a wash tub under the window to my left and drying laundry hangs on two lines stretching the length of the room above me. To my right is a second room equal in size, this one holding a single large bed, the covers unmade, and a wooden chest of drawers, a cracked mirror hung above it. Wedged between the mirror and the wall is a piece of paper, with two tiny hand and footprints, the words _Iris kom Trikru_ and _August 13, 2147_ written below it.

“Those are from when she was a newborn,” Althea says, digging around in the chest of drawers. I sit on the edge of the bed and Iris, now warmed up to me due to my frequent visits, comes and crawls on the bed and stands behind me, leaning her weight onto me, her fingers running through my hair, pulling when she hits a knot. “I wanted something I could keep of hers, since well, you know, I probably won’t keep her forever.” She pulls something out of the drawer, tossing it at me. “Try this on. Don’t pull her hair, Iris.”

“It’s alright,” I laugh. “I like her.” I tap her tiny shoulder. “Can you move, please, so I can stand up?”

She plops down and bulldozes her head into the covers, popping up again like tiny ghost, getting a laugh from both of us, which sets her into a fit of roaring laughter too.

I change into the dress, trying it on. It falls to my knees and couldn’t be softer. “I have never been more comfortable in my entire life,” I say, leaning back on her bed. “I feel like I can breathe again.”

“Like the dress, huh?” Althea laughs. “I’m glad I kept it.” 

“I love it.” The dress was sleeveless and a beautiful shade of purple, darkening as it went down the dress. The fabric was light and airy, and best of all, there was absolutely nothing to constrict me. 

“You might get cold,” she apologizes, “but I was pregnant during the summer, so I made it to light to stay cool.”

“You made it?” I say in awe. “Did you dye the fabric too?”

“I used berries for the dye. I just pulled it out of the dye slowly so it had that gradient affect.”

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.” I pull on my jacket. “We should probably get back work though, huh?”

“We should,” she says. When she goes to pick up Iris again, she’s fallen fast asleep on their bed. Althea smiles lovingly at her daughter, always happy to see a sleepy toddler. “I think she’ll be okay here. We just need to tin the salve and then I’ll come right back and check on her.” She covers her with an extra blanket and tucks her in. “Sweet dreams, _fyucha_.”

We return to the main village, and just as we’re about to head back into the apothecary shop, there’s a commotion on the other side of the square.

I squint, trying to see. “What's going on?” 

“I think someone’s hurt,” Althea says, breaking off into a run.

“Wait!” I call after her.

Being carried in by a man is a young girl, no older than eight, with an arrow in her stomach. Seeing the blood drip off her tiny body sends an ache through my body.

“Please,” he begs. “Help my daughter.”

“Bring her in here,” Nyko orders, directing them to a large building to the right. “Althea, you too, and her,” he points to me. “Let her see the damage done by the Ice Nation.”

The girl’s father lays her down on a cot inside the infirmary. Blood soaks her shirt, but is no longer actively pouring from her, suggesting her vessels are clamping down, starved of blood to bleed.

“What happened?” Nyko asks, ripping sheets of fabric into strips and holding pressure to the wound. She groans and tries to grab at the arrow. 

I intercept her hands and hold them gently. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you touch that.”

“We were fishing down by the river,” her father explains. “I knelt down to pick up more bait, and I know they were aiming for me, I know it, and she stood and turned at just the right second and this happened,” he gestures to her, a string of curses following after. 

“What’s her name?” I ask.

He turns sharply to Nyko. “Who’s this?” 

“This is Morgan,” Althea says, swiftly moving about the infirmary, grabbing bottles from shelves and stirring their contents into a cup. “She’s the apothecary from Skaikru. I’m teaching her how to make medicine on Earth.”

He looks down at her pained face, holding her other hand. “Her name is Lyra.”

“Lyra, honey?” I brush her stringy brown hair off her face, still holding her hand. “I know you feel pretty sick right now. But it’s okay, because your dad is here, and so is Nyko, and Althea. We’ll take care of you, I promise. You don’t have to worry about anything. We’re here.”

Althea comes to her side with a cup of something. “Drink.”

I wave her off. “Don’t bother.”

“I’m patient with you most of the time, Morgan, but don’t you dare talk to me like that right now. Drink.” She lifts the cup to Lyra’s lips and she takes a few small drinks, but they seem to cause her great pain. 

“She’s not bleeding anymore,” I point out.

“Is that a good thing?” her father asks, the hope in his tone palpable. 

“Her body is saying it’s out of blood,” I say, stroking her hand gently. “It’s trying to save itself by clamping down her blood vessels. Unless you have means of transfusion, we should just keep her comfortable.”

“She’s not gone yet,” Althea says, drawing up a syringe of something. The liquid is pale cornflower blue. I realize it’s the spider antivenom I gave her when we first met. She lifts the girl’s sleeve and plunges it into her arm.

“Why did you do that?” I ask. “She wasn’t bitten by a spider.”

“No,” Nyko says, sharing a look with Althea, who picks up a bundle of clean cloth. In one swift motion Nyko removes the arrow and Althea holds pressure over the wound. “But this arrow was poisoned with venom from a spider in Azgeda’s territory.” He wraps the arrow in cloth and discards it. “The spiders don’t live this far south, so we don’t have an antidote.”

Althea gently removes the cloth to get a peek at the wound, and to my surprise, it’s white. 

“That would be the venom,” she says. 

“Just give it a minute,” Nyko orders.

Unfortunately, instead of the white skin shrinking, it only grows. Lyra begins to whimper, then cry, and now she makes a noise almost like screaming with every breath. 

Nyko shakes his head and turns to Althea. “Give it to her.”

Althea picks up a small tin containing several small green leaves. She uses a cloth to pick one up and eases it into Lyra’s mouth. “ _Yu gonplei ste odon_.”

Her cries of pain continue on for far, far too long for my heart to listen to. Her breaths become quicker and quicker until she’s gasping for breath, clawing to move, trying to breathe. Nyko and Althea sit at the foot of her bed, and her father holds her hand. I take a side glance at Althea, and mouth: “She’s in respiratory failure.”

Instead of responding, she holds up the tin.

Her gasps fade until there are no more. Nyko motions for us all to leave, letting the father grieve his lost daughter in peace.

Once outside, I demand answers. 

“Azgeda is trying to take out the strongest among us,” Nyko explains. “They want to be the ones in power, but it is not us who chooses the Commander, it is the Spirit of the Flame.”

“Lexa is Trikru,” Althea explains. “I don’t know if they think we did something to put her in power or if they think attacking her clan will make her step down. But that’s what we’re dealing with,” she nods to the infirmary, “all the time.”

“I’m sorry the antivenom didn’t work. The formula was created long before the bombs. It’s probably outdated with spiders now.”

“It’s not your fault,” she says. “It was worth a try.”

“What did you give her?” I ask. “What’s in that container?”

“Hemlock,” Althea says, turning the tin over in her hands. “It’s deadly. I know it doesn’t make sense to keep something fatal among the medicine, but –”

“It’s euthanasia,” I nod. “I’m assuming it was a kindness, and that the death from the venom was going to be worse. And still, that,” I point to the building behind us, “was absolutely awful to watch.”

“She was going to start bleeding again,” Althea says, “and it wouldn’t have just been from her wound, it would’ve been from her eyes, ears, mouth, even the tiniest scratch on her fingertip, and it would’ve poured like water, faster than anyone could stop. Paralysis would’ve creeped up and down her body from the wound, leaving her trapped in a body she could feel but not move. It hurts too, the screaming near the end,” she bites her lip, biting back tears. “It’s not like anything you’ve ever heard before. I know it seemed like hemlock took a long time and was harsh, but it was better than what was coming for her.” She turns the tin over in her hand. “Come on, back to the shop. I’ll give you some to take home, just in case.”

“You don’t think they’ll do the same to us, do you?” I ask. “We have nothing in your politics.”

“You do now,” Nyko says.

My bag packed with hemlock, milkweed salve, and two roots of ginseng, I leave the village, trying to remember where I split from Miller.

He stands, ever faithful, against a tree, throwing acorns at a nearby pond, listening to the plop as they hit the water. “You look terrible,” he comments. 

“Thanks.” I crouch down by the pond and wash my hands in the water, rubbing my thumb over the child’s blood on my hands. “I just watched an eight-year-old die. Someone shot her with an arrow and Althea had to kill her. And I had to watch.”

He doesn’t say anything until I stand up, my hands dripping wet, and he holds out a piece of cloth from his bag to dry my hands on. “Watching an innocent person die is a pretty awful thing, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk to you if you’re just going to be like this.” I push past him, the low-lying brush scraping my exposed shins, making them bleed, as if I hadn’t seen enough blood today. 

I hear his footsteps follow. “Now you know what it’s like.”

I whip around. “I don’t think you understand a damn thing about what I have felt since that day. I wish I’d just turned my data pad off. I wish I’d never read that message. I wish I’d never come to help you.” I poke his chest with my finger. “I did it because I couldn’t leave you, Miller, because I love you. And I think you know that, and I think you just like to be the asshole sometimes. 

“All I see is his blood pouring over my hand. I see you, backed up against the cabinet, trying to make a brave escape. Hell, you probably thought you were next the way you’re acting now. I feel his heart stop beating under my fingertips. All I can think about is: ‘What was his middle name? Who were his parents? What was his favorite color? Did he love someone? When was his birthday? Why did he want to be a guard?’ I want to know everything about him and who he was. I want to know why I’m down here, among petty thieves and second born children. Why am I still here? Why didn’t they kill me when they found me there, covered in blood and the boy with the slit throat lying beside me? There was no bother in putting me in lock up. How can anyone forgive a murderer?”


	12. Twelve

_**19 weeks 2 days October 3, 2149** _

“There you are.” Bellamy’s head pops in the pharma tent, sighing in relief. “I couldn’t find you.”

I put down the pencil. Clarke returned my book late last night and I’d spent the morning cataloging yesterday’s lesson. “And you didn’t think to check here? Here, the tent where I work?”

He shakes his head. “Just slight panic there for a second.”

I tilt my head. “What is it, Bellamy?”

“I wanted to ask you to come with me to TonDc. The Commander is going to be there briefly and well, it’s a hell of shorter walk than it is to Polis.”

I grab my jacket off the table. “And just what part of Grounder politics will we be getting involved in today?”

“Farming and hunting ground negotiations.” He hands me a bag, already packed. “The hunting parties haven’t brought anything back for three days.”

I pull my hair out of my jacket. “Wait, three days?”

He gives me a weak smile. “Play it up, okay?”

A temporary structure has been set up in the middle of the village, larger than the apothecary shop. Sentries are posted in front of it, steely eyed and unwavering. Bellamy puts a hand on my back, a silent reminder of the part I need to play. I scan village, looking for Althea, but unsurprisingly, she’s nowhere to be found.

Two armed guards block the entrance of the tent, crossing their spears. “No one enters the Commander’s quarters without invitation.”

“Tell her it’s Bellamy Blake of Skaikru. This is Clarke Griffin and Octavia Blake,” he gestures to each of them, and then to me. “And this is my wife, Morgan.” 

I take his hand and squeeze it, my fingernails digging into his palm. _Your wife?_

He squeezes back, tighter. _Yes, my wife._

A guard pops inside the tent for a moment, then pops his head out. “Right this way.”

I follow Bellamy into the spacious tent, keeping a tight grip on his hand, both for appearances and also because I don’t trust anyone here. In the center of the tent, a young woman, hardly older than myself, sits on a throne made of twisted, crooked branches and warped metal. Her hair is elaborately done up in braids pulled away from her face and she wears warpaint around her eyes, painted so that it looks like dark, dripping blood. _Like nightblood_ , I realize, and the thought makes my stomach turn. What did she have to do to be here, sitting on this throne? What happens when she is gone? Is Iris next?

“Commander,” Bellamy regards.

“And you are?”

“Bellamy Blake, co-leader of Skaikru. We’ve come to negotiate for more farmland and hunting grounds. There are over seventy of us, and what you’ve given us, though we’re grateful for it, won’t sustain us.”

The Commander’s gaze falls on me, and she raises her eyebrows. “Are you Skaikru’s other leader?”

“No,” I say timidly. She spins a knife on the arm of her throne like a toy. My heart beats in my stomach. I point to Clarke. “She is.”

“Then why are you here?”

"This is my wife, Morgan,” Bellamy interjects. “She wanted to come with me.”

The Commander holds my eyes. I silently shrink into myself. “Really? It doesn’t look like that to me.”

“Please,” he begs, changing the subject. “We need the land. She’s pregnant. You’re not really going to let her starve, are you?”

“Why did you bring your ‘wife’, Bellamy?” The Commander stands and steps forward until she’s mere inches from his face, staring him down. “It looks to me like she’s just some random girl you picked up on the side of the road to try to gain my sympathy. For all I know, she’s not even pregnant.” In one swift move, she pulls my shirt up. I sink into Bellamy’s side. Her eyes seem to soften, and then she lowers it back down. 

Bellamy takes a half step in front of me, matching the Commander’s fire. “Do you trust me now?”

“Listen,” she returns to her throne. “I’m in the business of leading my people, and more importantly, keeping the peace. The reason Trikru doesn’t want to give up their land to a bunch of unwanted invaders, is because they already have unwanted invaders taking their land. The Ice Queen wants me off this throne and she thinks attacking my clan is the way to get to me. Trikru has taken enough of a beating and you already have land from them.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “It’s not enough. You know it’s not enough.”

“I know my people fought their own battles to earn the right to live here. It’s time you do too.”

Clarke steps forward. “Commander –”

“No.” Lexa motions to her guards. “Take them outside. We’re done.”

Octavia sits outside on a log, her legs kicked out in front of her, her sword balanced on her lap. She’d gone through quite the transformation since landing on Earth, truly embracing the Grounder’s way of life, from the weaponry to the style of dress. She held herself differently now, no longer the scared girl trapped under the floor; she was now free in every sense of the word.

“We should get going,” Bellamy tells her. “She’s not interested in helping us.”

“Wait,” I stop him. “I want to go check on something in the apothecary shop before we go. Althea’s not here but it’ll only take a minute.”

“Hurry,” he says. “Be safe.”

I promise him that I will, and turn to go to the apothecary shop when Clarke catches up to me. “Do you mind if I tag along? I want to see how she does things.”

“Sure,” I tell her. “You’ll be really impressed with how efficiently things run. I almost don’t think I’d know what to do in a lab now.”

I open the door to the shop, ducking to avoid hitting my head on the drying plants hanging from the ceiling. “This is feverfew.” I reach up, taking a few strands and laying them gently on the top of my bag. “We gathered and hung them up yesterday to dry. I didn’t plan on coming back until later this week but they’re dry enough to already to take them home.”

“What’s it do?”

“Reduces fevers, as the name might suggest,” I laugh. 

“Well, now I feel stupid.” Clarke walks around the shop, her eyes catching on the bottles of tonic, pouches of dried plants, tins of salves. On the shelf above the workspace is a tiny vial of blue liquid only two-thirds full and a syringe. “I see she used it.”

“Yeah,” I slip my bag on my shoulder. “Didn’t work. Kid died anyway.”

Clarke’s face falls. “The kid?”

The door opens, a tiny familiar face with a red runny nose clinging to a familiar hip. “What are you doing in here?” she asks.

I point to the missing strings of feverfew. “I was getting my share.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” she brushes me off, “but what is she doing in here?”

“I’m Clarke,” she says, extending her hand to shake.

“I know who you are, you were there the day I met Morgan.” Althea pushes past her, grabbing a bottle from the top shelf and pouring it into a small cup, standing by the window to make sure she gets the right amount, lifting the cup to Iris’s mouth. “Here,” she says. “Drink.” Iris turns her head away and leans back so far I’m afraid Althea might drop her. “I know it tastes bad, but you’ve kept me up all night coughing.” Still unwilling to take her medicine, Althea sits down, leaning her against her knees and pinning her down with one arm, forcing her still.

“I’m sorry if you feel I’ve invaded your space,” Clarke says. “Morgan said she was just popping in to get something and I was curious what your set up is.”

Not wavering from her task of trying to tame a sick toddler, Althea says, “And she knows exactly how I feel about people coming in here.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t see you around and thought it’d be okay just this once.”

“You won’t do it again,” Althea promises. Eventually she gets the cup to Iris’s lips and she drinks most of it, spitting out the rest before she rolls out from her mother’s grasp, hitting her head on the hearth of the fireplace. She starts screaming, and Althea lurches forward, grabbing her, blocking her from Clarke’s view. 

I grab Clarke’s arm. “We should go.”

Clarke pulls her arm away. “Let me have a look at that.”

“No.” Althea stands, holding Iris’s head still in the crook of her neck, but black blood runs down her neck and chest anyway. 

Clarke squints. “Is that blood?”

“We should really go,” I press. “She’s already had a hard day. We should leave them alone.”

Clarke swats me away. “No, I think she needs stitches.”

“She doesn’t need anything from you, thank you,” Althea says, grabbing a blanket from Iris’s playpen and holding pressure on the wound. She pulls the blanket back for a moment to check on the bleeding, but it just gushes again. 

“Althea,” I say gently.

She’s on the verge of crying. 

“Clarke can make it stop. Please. You can trust her.” I touch her arm gently and she squeezes her eyes shut, tears falling. “You have my word.”

“I can’t let someone else know,” she cries in hiccupped, choppy words. “I can’t protect her.”

“You can,” I promise her. “You are. But she needs more than you can give her right now.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Clarke interjects, “but I swear on my life to keep any secret you ask.”

The fear in Althea's eyes ignites some deep, familiar pain in me. “She’ll tell them.”

“She won’t.”

“I just want her to be safe.”

“I know.”

Clarke stands with a box of silk thread sutures, one of the few gifts left from her mother. She would never use them on anyone other than Skaikru. “I can fix her,” she promises. 

“Will you let her?” I ask.

Althea nods, laying Iris down on the counter. I take over holding pressure on her cut and Clarke lays out her tools, tying a knot in the thread. “This will hurt,” she apologizes, “but you’ll just have to hold her down because it won’t stop if I don’t.”

Althea dries her eyes. “Do it.”

I pull back the cloth and I hear Clarke draw in a tiny breath, her eyes alight with questions at the sight of black blood. I grab her wrist. “You tell anyone about her blood and I will personally kill you.” I grab her wrist tighter. “You won’t be my first.”

Clarke nods, and whether she thinks I’m bluffing or not I don’t know. All this time I swore I would never take another life, but if Clarke turns her back on Althea and Iris, I don’t think I can stop myself.

She makes five neat stitches in her forehead while Althea speaks softly and tries to comfort her screaming daughter. I hold my weight on her tiny body, both to so Clarke can work and to keep her from falling off the counter and making the situation even worse. When Clarke finishes, she wipes away the excess blood with water and bandages up her forehead in gauze.

“Thank you,” Althea says, picking up Iris and holding her close. 

I hold out a piece of wet gauze to her. “You’ve got blood on you.”

“Oh.” She takes the gauze and wipes it away. 

As if we needed more people, Bellamy opens the door. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”

He steps in the shop, oblivious to the three other people in the room, and looks me over, brushing my hair back and tilting my head, looking at my hands and turning them over. “I heard screaming and then you didn’t come back.”

“I’m okay,” I promise him. I turn around. “This is Althea, the apothecary, and her daughter Iris. She fell and Clarke gave her a few stitches. We’re all okay.”

“Oh.” He nods to Althea. “Nice to meet you.”

“Might as well bring all of Skaikru in here then, Morgan.” She sits down on a stool, exhausted from the adrenaline rush. “You seem to have brought them all with you.”

“This is Bellamy,” I introduce her. “He’s,” I shake my head, the words still strange to say. “He’s the baby’s father.”

“Congratulations.” She motions to the door. “Can you all just leave?”

Outside of the shop, Bellamy asks, “Is she always that short with people?”

“Give her a break,” I tell him. “She’s had a very, very difficult day.”

Falling behind Clarke, he lowers his voice. “Please don’t scare me like that again. We’re not exactly liked here and I was afraid something happened to you.”

“Why were you afraid?” I shake my head. “I can handle myself. Besides, everyone here knows I come here all the time.”

He frowns. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. I don't understand why you're fighting me all the time.”

"I'm not fighting you. I just don't want to be smothered."

"Surely you can understand why hearing screaming from across the village square would make me worry."

"Surely you could realize that was a child's scream and not mine."

"I was going to help anyone who was screaming at the top of their lungs."

"Let me tell you something," I say. "If I wasn't in there and Althea was by herself and you walked in, I think you might've died right there on the spot."

"I think that's an exaggeration. The kid needed stitches. She was hurt. She needed help."

"Oh no, that's not an exaggeration." I turn to him. "You need to be more choosy with who you try to rescue. What you see as help might be someone else's danger. Not everyone wants to be coddled."

"What if it was you who was hurt? How was I supposed to know without checking? What kind of boyfriend would I be?"

I roll my eyes. "Oh my god. This again."

He stops. "No new food. Three days."

"Don't remind me."

Octavia raises her eyebrows and points to the woods with her sword, signaling she's ready to go. "Are you two going to fight the entire way home?"

"No."

"Maybe."

"This is one of those times that I'm so glad I don't have to live with you anymore, Bell." She turns to me. "Can you imagine being stuck in one room with him for sixteen years?"

"Don't bring her into this, O."

"Don't bring us into your bickering then. It's a four hour walk. Make peace with each other or we'll leave you both."

"You won't do that."


	13. Thirteen

_**19 weeks 2 days October 3, 2149** _

Sure enough, she did. 

“That’s it,” Octavia broke. “It’ll be completely dark in about an hour and we’re still two hours away from camp. We would’ve been there by now if we didn’t have to keep stopping for you two to catch up.” She threw a bag at her brother. “You can make camp here because you’re clearly not going to make it home in time.”

“And where are you and Clarke going?” he asked. “Let’s just make camp together.”

“Absolutely not. Clarke and I will spend the night in Lincoln’s cave and then she can go home by herself in the morning. You two are not invited."

With that, she and Clarke disappeared into the woods, apparently both of them were just itching to leave us.

I turn to Bellamy. “Octavia is being ridiculous.”

“Hey,” he snaps. “That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

I match his tone. “I know.”

He huffs, surveying the area. “There’s no water here. How are we supposed to camp here?”

I look around. We couldn’t have been dropped into a more generic area. It was just trees all around, no water or landmarks or anything. I could keep my sense of direction if I was moving, but suddenly the world started to blend together. 

He sighs, picking up the pack Octavia threw at him. “We should just keep moving.”

“We should head downhill,” I say. “We’re more likely to find water there.”

“We’re also more likely to be trapped if we’re attacked.”

“So we’re just going to walk around in circles until we find a pond?”

“We’re not walking in circles. This is the way home.”

“I don’t think so.” I point to what I think is west. “I’ve made this trip more than you. It’s this way.”

“No. I remember us coming this way.”

“I’m absolutely certain we didn’t.” He trudges onward, ignoring my protests. I jog to catch up to him. “We should just make camp here and start fresh in the morning.”

“I just want to go home, to my own bed, where I can roll over and not look at you. We don’t even have a tent. We can’t camp here.”

“We’ll find shelter. It’s one night.”

“I said no.”

“Please?” I ask nicely, trying to turn on the feminine charm I’ve been told I completely and utterly lack. I spent my teenage years in a lab or in prison. I don’t know a damn thing about charming boys. He turns around to look at me. “I’m tired. You said it yourself that I would get tired fast. Remember that conversation?”

“I would really rather not remember that conversation.” He looks around, trying to pick a different direction, clearly unsure of the true way home himself. Light was already fading and would only get worse with time. We need to make a decision and we need to make it now. “We’ll walk until we find a place to make a shelter,” he concedes. “Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes.”

We walk until it's almost completely dark, and in that time the weather has gone from cloudy to pouring rain, and the temperature from cool to freezing. 

“Here!” Bellamy shouts, the din of the rain drowning out his voice. He points to a small cave up ahead. “We just have to hope no one lives in it!”

We make a mad dash for the cave, the entrance barely big enough for us to fit through. 

Once inside, I brush back my jacket hood and I can feel my hair frizz. 

“Well,” Bellamy laughs. “At least it’s not raining in here.”

I smile, grateful to be out of the rain. “You’re telling me.” I pull off my jacket, which hasn’t zipped in several weeks, and realize that while it saved most of my arms and shoulders from the rain, my belly did not fare so well, the front of the thin sundress soaked and clinging to my skin. I shiver, chilled to the bone. 

Bellamy pulls a blanket out of his pack and searches through mine and the one Octavia gave him, but neither have any more. He spreads it out on the floor and folds one half over, making it into a sleeping bag. “I’m afraid there’s only one.” 

“It’s okay,” I say, my teeth chattering.

“Here.” He pulls off his jacket and then his shirt, which is completely dry, the cold wet air and the stone of the cave walls zapping the heat from him, but he does his best to mask it. “Change out of that wet dress and put this on.”

“I can’t take that from you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re freezing, dumbass.” 

“Take it,” he insists, shoving the gray long sleeve t-shirt in my hands. He turns around, hugging his knees. “I won’t look.”

I can’t deny that the warm shirt in my hands feels inviting. I pull the dress up over my head and spread it out to the side so it’ll dry. I pull the shirt on, soft and roomy, the sleeves extending past my hands, the end of it covering just enough to touch the top of my thighs. I pull off my shoes and socks and climb into the sleeping bag, pulling the blanket up to my ears. “Okay. You can turn around now.”

“Better?” he chuckles, my eyes the only thing visible from underneath the blanket.

“Yes,” I laugh.

He pulls off his boots and jeans and must notice the look on my face. “Like it’s not something you’ve seen before.” He crawls in the sleeping bag next to me, putting himself on the outside edge, the blanket not fully covering his back. “This is purely practical. We’ll both freeze in this weather if we don’t share it.”

“Yeah,” I agree, rolling over to face the cave wall. The combined six hours of walking, the rejection from the Commander, and the panic of Iris hitting her head and another person walking around with the secret of her nightblood has left me drained, my legs feeling like gelatin, but somehow there is still no sleep with the person lying next to me. I’m not sure how long I lie there awake, but eventually my hips begin to hurt, so I roll over, and without thinking put my leg over his, the same way I do with my pillow at home.

“Easy there,” he laughs, his hand coming to rest on my lower back, pulling me closer. “I thought we were being practical.”

“We are,” I choke out. He’s so close I can feel his breath, his body heat through the t-shirt, and then I remember it’s his t-shirt, and suddenly the sleeping bag feels very warm, almost stifling. “My hips hurt. And it’s your fault,” I add as an afterthought.

He’s looking at me, and up this close I can see he has freckles everywhere, even on his eyelids and in the pink of his lips. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

I can’t think of anything else to say, or of anything at all for that matter, then tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. 

And then I feel it.

I gasp. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” he asks.

I grin, so big it feels like my cheeks will fall off. It’s been with me for nearly five months now, silently, but there it is, waving its first hello.

“I just felt the baby move for the first time.” I grab his hand, moving it from the curve of my back to my lower stomach, over the area where I felt the first kick or roll or punch. 

We wait.

“Say something to it,” I tell him. “Say hi. Poke it.”

He presses his hand into my stomach for a moment and waits, getting nothing in return.

“Talk to it,” I tell him. “They say it knows your voice. It knows you’re Dad.”

“No,” he says. “It knows your voice, because you’re always there. I don’t think it knows my voice out of seventy others it hears on a daily basis.”

“Try,” I beg. “I want you to feel it.”

He shakes his head. “Hi.”

I roll my eyes. “Say more than that.”

“It’s your dad here,” he laughs. “Your mom is convinced you can hear me in there and that you know who I am, but you don’t know me from any other –”

But it does know. I feel another movement and Bellamy must be able to feel it too, because a huge smile spreads across his face, his eyes welling up. 

I laugh with him, and suddenly the fear of raising a baby on earth isn’t so overwhelming, because I know it doesn’t matter what happens. How could I not do everything in my power to protect something so tiny? How could I not build a fortress of love to keep them safe in?


	14. Fourteen

_**19 weeks 3 days October 4, 2149** _

When I wake the sleeping bag is empty, and the space Bellamy once occupied is cold. I sit up and stretch, and as I crawl out of the covers and the cool October air hits my bare legs, I remember the storm that forced us into this small cave, and the fight that forced us to separate from our group.

“You’re up,” he says, crawling back into the cave with a canteen. “I found a stream just down the hill.” He offers me the canteen and I take it from him.

“Downhill, huh? Imagine that.” I grin, taking several gulps of the refreshing, cool water. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. When the ache from the cold water dissipates in my chest, my stomach rumbles. “You didn’t find anything to eat while you were out, did you?”

He sighs. “No.”

I lower the canteen. “No berries, nuts, anything?”

He sits down on the cave floor in front of me. “I’m afraid the squirrels have beat us to them, and I can’t find a squirrel for that matter either.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m getting really worried about the food thing.”

“Just because you didn’t see any animals in one tiny area doesn’t mean there aren’t any here.” I put the lid on the canteen and shake out my dress. “Let’s just worry about getting home and we can figure out what to do when we get there.”

The combination of the sunny weather and daylight helped us find our camp again without too much fighting.

Clarke stands near the gate, looking worried. 

“I hoped you were the hunters coming home,” she says, arms crossed over her chest. 

“No,” I say. “Just us.”

“Have they brought anything home while we were gone?” Bellamy asks.

“Smokehouse is empty,” Clarke reports. “Our store of gathered food is dwindling now too since we have no meat. Monty has us rationing pretty strictly, but people are getting hungry without protein.”

Bellamy steals a side glance at me. “We have to do something.”

“You heard Lexa,” Clarke says. “We have to stay in our territory.”

“No,” Bellamy corrects. “She said we had to fight for our own territory.”

Clarke shakes her head. “I really don’t want to get into another war with them. We've lost almost a third of our people to the Grounders alone.”

“I’m not going to let us starve,” Bellamy says with finality. “When the hunters come back, tell them we’re not adhering to our five-mile radius. We go where the meat is.” 

“And the gathering?” I ask.

“We have to eat. I don’t believe the Grounders stick strictly to their territory when it comes to hunting. How are they supposed to know the exact boundary lines?”

“A hundred years of experience,” Clarke points out. 

Bellamy pauses, thinking it over. “We’ll take our chances.” The look on Clarke’s face makes it clear she does not agree. “Don’t look at me like that. We do it or we starve. There are no other options left.”

Clarke sighs, walking away. “I’ll tell the next group.”

I turn to Bellamy. “I have some pharma work to finish. Um.” The image of his face mere inches from mine last night flashes through my mind, too fast to hang on to, but too slow to miss. “I’ll see you tonight?”

"Yeah," he says. "Tonight."

Finally alone in the pharma tent, I take a moment to process the last twenty-four hours. Somehow I went from an actress to a nurse to a killer to a cranky wife to wearing Bellamy’s shirt in a cave with my leg over his. I shake my head, trying to erase the memory, but somehow, I still feel the pressure from his hand on my lower back, pulling me into him.

I sit down at my table and pick up my notebook, the pages slowly filling up with my knowledge of Earth's medicine. I add feverfew to my book, listing all the information I know about it. I set a piece aside for Clarke to draw, then pick the leaves off for tea and store them in a clear jar from the bunker Clarke and Finn found, slipping a piece of paper on top with the name of the plant. 

I wish it took longer to do. Now I sit in the tent, all my work done in less than an hour, my hands idle and bored to death. 

I lean my back against the table, looking down at my stomach, draped in the flowy fabric of Althea’s dress. I pause. Bellamy had spoken to it personally, but I hadn’t yet.

I give my belly a little poke from either side. “Hi there,” I say. It feels ridiculous to sit in here, talking to myself, but it moved for Bellamy’s voice, so maybe it will move for mine. “It’s your mama here.” I laugh. “That still sounds crazy to say. I know you’re in there though. I can’t pretend you’re not anymore because nothing fits.” No response. “I’m scared as hell for you to be born. You picked a shitty time to arrive – this world is nothing but chaos and death.” I look down, trying to picture its face. “I should know. I contributed to it.” I pause, gathering my thoughts. “I know it can be done though. I’ve seen the kind of all-consuming love Althea has for her daughter – so much of it that she makes decisions that don’t make sense sometimes. I know how I am. I know that’s how I love too, so I know you’ll be safe.” I rub my thumb along the curve of my belly absentmindedly. “I won’t be alone either. You’ll have your dad, and you’ll have what’s left of the hundred, too. They’re excited to meet you – more excited than we were if I’m honest.” A lump forms in my throat. “I hope you can forgive me for all the things I’ve done. I’ve hurt a lot of people and done a lot of bad things. I hope you don’t have to do anything like it. I hope the world is different by the time you’re here.”

The thought of my tiny baby, boy or girl, all grown up with a sword in their hand or holding a gun or staring down an arrow, taking aim at another human life shatters my heart into pieces. I imagine them in my place on the Ark, a place they will never even see, standing over the body of a child when they are still children themselves, a bloody knife in their hand, a terrified witness of it all in the corner, trying to hide from them, afraid of what comes next. How could such a tiny thing ever grow up to be so disastrous?

I’m so caught up in the wretched idea that I don’t hear someone come into the tent. I don’t notice them at all until they grab my face, wiping away tears and snot and God knows what else with their sleeve, trying desperately to get me to focus on them.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What is it? Tell me.” Knelt down in front of me is the same face I saw mixed with my own, ready to follow in the path of their parents, in the wake of death and destruction we brought with us. “Please tell me,” he begs.

I lurch forward, crashing into him, holding tight. “It’s going to hate me for bringing it into this world. It’s going to hate me for everything I’ve done.” Tears run down my face, sticking my hair to my cheeks. “It’ll grow up to be a killer too. It’ll follow in my footsteps.”

“No, no.” He strokes my hair gently. “You don’t know that. This baby will love you for nothing other than being it’s mother.”

I take a deep breath, trying to stop crying enough to speak. “The entire reason it’ll be born is because I killed that boy. We would’ve never known each other if I hadn’t.”

“Then if that’s the case, this baby wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t shot the Chancellor, so I’m just as guilty.”

“No, you’re not. Jaha lived and he forgave you.” I pull back. “Corbin didn’t. He wouldn’t forgive me even if he had the chance.”

“Hey, hey,” he says, putting a hand on my arm. “I forgive you.” He pulls me back into a hug. “Please don’t beat yourself up over this. You can’t change the past. It happened. But I will be with you every step of the way and this baby will not grow up to be violent or heartless or whatever words you’re using to describe yourself because you’re not any of them. I don’t care what Miller says. You are not any of those things.”


	15. Fifteen

_**20 weeks 0 days October 8, 2149** _

“I know you don’t want to,” Bellamy says, tying his laces, “but you’re going to have to look through the extra clothes. I don’t think you should be going on a twenty-mile hike through the woods in October in a sundress.”

I roll over onto my back, which is starting to get uncomfortable to do. I sit up and rub my eyes. The sun was rising and the air was chilly, and I was going with the team to Mount Weather to blow open the doors. “I still feel weird about that. They’re not mine to take.”

“What’re they going to do with them?” Bellamy asks. “The clothes we wore on the Ark were handed down through many generations. It’s okay to let things go. You’re in need,” he reminds me. “It’s not like you’re stealing clothes to horde them.” He leans down and picks something up out of a crate at the foot of his bed. He hands it to me. “Here. This one you’re being given.”

I turn the soft, worn blue fabric over in my hands. “But this is your shirt.”

“You need it,” he promises, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. The offhand touch makes me reel back and he withdraws his hand, looking down. “I’ll see you outside.”

The shirt falls to the tops of my thighs and the three buttons – all of which are fake – show a bit more chest than I’m used to. I try to squeeze into my old jeans and while they come up far enough for me not to be embarrassed to walk outside in them - thanks to the long shirt - they are nowhere near close to being able to button anymore. I guess Bellamy is right. If I’m going to go to Mount Weather, I need some pants that fit.

In the dropship are three crates of clothing, all from our dead friends. It seems so selfish and thoughtless to go through their clothes like I’m shopping, but I don’t have another option. I find a pair of black jeans, somewhat faded but still retaining a fair amount of stretch, and hold them up to myself. They look like they’ll fit, so I stand behind a seat in the dropship and quickly wiggle out of my jeans and put on the new ones. For today, they fit. 

I drop my old jeans in one of the bins in an attempt to make it an equal exchange. 

“Ooh, look at you,” Raven says, loading her pack for the day’s adventure. “Did you have a fun night last night?”

“A fun night?”

“Your shirt,” she points.

“Oh, no,” I laugh lightly. “You of all people should know that. He just gave it to me so I don’t freeze in that sundress today.”

“How am I supposed to know that? Look where you’re at now,” she grins. She zips her bag. "Besides, I've seen the way you two have been looking at each other since you came home from TonDc. A day late, I might add. Something's up. You don't look like you want to kill each other anymore."

“Raven,” I groan. "None of it's real."

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she chuckles. “You would never have sex with Bellamy. Not ever, not in a million, billion years.”

I punch her shoulder lightly.

“Oh no,” Raven grabs her arm. “You have wounded me greatly.”

“You girls ready?” Clarke asks, walking up to us. “I see you found some new clothes.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard all about how nice I look in them.” I roll my eyes at Raven. 

“Come on,” she nods. “Jasper and Monty have the cart all loaded up.”

The bomb is similar to the one used on the bridge, except this time Raven, Monty, and Jasper have taken the care to calculate how much power it should have in order to not bring the mountain down. The bomb is rigged to the latch in the door, and we all take shelter in the woods.

“Are we ready, ladies and gentlemen?” Raven asks.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Clarke says.

Raven turns on her radio. “We’re a go, Sharpshooter.”

Jasper’s voice replies back. “Oh, I love it when you call me that.”

Somewhere in the woods, directly in front of the bomb, Jasper fires his gun, the first bullet dinging on the concrete walls. The second hits the bomb, leaving my ears ringing.

A trail of smoke rises from the front of the mountain. Raven, beside me, is absolutely itching to go check it out, but she waits until the smoke is cleared. When the air is only hazy, she makes a dash for the door, and I hear a whoop of excitement before I’ve even cleared the tree line.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, pulling open the door, “welcome to the Mount Weather Complex.”

The large, dark, gaping opening in the mountain looks like it might swallow us. Bellamy heads down first, flashlight in one hand and gun in the other. When we hear the all clear, we follow him down.

The mountain smells damp and cold. The rough concrete walls scrape my fingertips as I carefully make my way down the stairs, ending in a spacious room, once lavishly and garishly decorated. Two velvet couches surround an ornate coffee table, trimmed in gold, the rug beneath it featuring the seal of the United States. There are stained paintings hanging on the walls, some the size of a man. The bust of a past president – I’m not sure which – sits on top of the mantle of a virtual fireplace. Everything in the room is faded or cracked or covered in dust and cobwebs. I don’t know much about the history of the United States – there was no need for divisions like that on the Ark after Unity Day – but I know enough about the economy that this bunker would’ve been extremely expensive to furnish, and it was money that the country didn’t have.

“Look at this.” Monty shines his light on a framed poster at the foot of the stairs. 

WELCOME PRESIDENT WALLACE

VICE PRESIDENT ORTEGA

CABINET AND CONGRESS

“I don’t think President Wallace ever made it down here,” Bellamy says.

“Uh, guys?” We turn to find Jasper’s voice in the dark. He picks up a piece of black fabric from the pile in front of him, and holds up a red, blue, and silver pin still attached to the cloth. It's the American flag pin worn by presidents for a century before the apocalypse. “I think he did.”

“The mountain must not have been sealed,” Monty says, shining a light on the ceiling. “The radiation must have killed them.”

“Monty and I will check out the structural integrity of the mountain and see how many repairs it needs to be functional again,” Raven says. “Everyone else, split up and see what might be usable. We’ll meet back here in an hour to decide if we move in or not.”

Clarke elbows me. “Let’s go check out the medical facilities.”

“Right behind you.”

Following the signs down the corridor, we find Med Bay on the main level next to the stairs that lead to the upper or lower levels. It’s larger than I anticipated, having a full OR, triage room, an overnight ward, and supply room. After canvassing the other rooms and finding most of the supplies damaged or nonsterile or otherwise unusable, Clarke and I head for the supply room.

“Do you see anything you can use?” Clarke holds a solar flashlight perched between her arm and shoulder, digging through a box of medical instruments. 

I pull bottles of pills and liquids down from the cabinet. According to the dates on the bottle, these drugs have been expired for almost a hundred years. While the drugs are useless, the bottles are not. A small, silver cup catches my eye, with indentions marked and measurements up the side. “Should I be this excited to have a measuring cup?”

Clarke looks over her shoulder. “I’d be more excited if we had any idea what the dose of anything should be.”

“Still.” I smile at the cup. “I feel professional with it.”

Clarke dusts her hands off, putting the crate back where she found it. “I’m not seeing much in here. There’s a few things I would keep if we don’t stay here, but not much.”

The supply room was bigger than my entire flat on the Ark. I turn to Clarke, the thought popping in my head. “Do you think they have a pharma lab?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It would make sense if they did, given how much money they put into this mountain and how long they intended to be able to stay here.”

We follow the signs on the wall, finding one simply marked ‘Lab’, and head downstairs to find it. 

Clarke shines her flashlight in the dark room, the light bouncing around the walls, taking in the sight. “You know, I’ve been training to be a doctor for almost six years but I’ve never even seen where the medicine comes from.”

I have no need for light. My fingers trail the table, feeling the cold of the marble, the metal sink, the stainless steel trays. There are vials, plastic containers, glass bottles. I couldn’t read the label in the dark, but I knew the container I held was antiseptic wipes, no doubt dried out by now. The plastic still holds the scent of disinfectant. “This is home.”

“Is this what it looked like on the Ark?”

“No,” I say. I pick up my flashlight and start looking through cabinets, finding rubber gloves, aprons, and shoe covers. “The Ark’s lab was much smaller and more outdated. People lived up there before the bombs, after all.”

Clarke nods. “Mankind hasn’t been together on one planet since the year 2000. Someone has always lived in space.”

“Well, we're together now,” I remind her. “The basics are all here though. Here are pill molds, funnels, syringes. I think these used to be capsules, though,” I shake the container, the contents fused together with moisture, “I don’t think they’re usable anymore.” I move down the line, and at the end of the counter hanging on hooks are four white lab coats, a little mortar and pestle embroidered on the pocket. I pick up one, sliding my arms into it. “It’s been forever since I’ve worn one of these,” I say. “I didn’t know how much I missed it.”

Clarke glances at her watch. “I think we should head back up. It’s almost been an hour and Raven will have a verdict by now.”

“You’re probably right,” I agree. I take off the coat but it lingers in my hand, unable to hang it back up. It’s the one piece of my history I find joy in remembering. “I’m taking this with me.”

When we round the corner of level 4, the one we arrived on, Raven sits at the base of the stairs and Monty leans on the velvet couch, studying the rug with the seal. “E Pluribus Unum,” he reads. “Of Many, One. Kind of like Unity Day.”

"Unity Day is a load of bullshit propaganda. They shot the thirteenth station out of the sky." Raven stands and joins us in the middle of the room. The others come out of other stairwells and hallways, coming together to hear the decision.

“Well,” Bellamy asks. “Do we stay?”

Monty turns around. “No. We found cracks in the ceiling and walls in some of the rooms. There’s no way to know if those cracks are just on the surface. We’d be risking a cave in if we moved all seventy-six of us in here.”

“We should just pack up what we can use and take it home,” Raven says. “We’re better off where we are.”

“Only half,” Bellamy reminds us. “That was the deal. If the Grounders want a mountain on the verge of a cave in, they can have it. Call it a bonus.”

Clarke looks around the room, knowing the horde of supplies in just the medical facilities, asks, “How long will that take us? How much can we carry back and forth?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jasper says, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket. “I have a solution.”

“A solar powered rover,” Clarke says, taking a crate of medical and pharmaceutical supplies from me and loading it in the back. “Now that was genius.”

Raven’s legs hang out from under the hood of the rover. “What's genius is how they made a battery that held its charge for ninety-seven years.”

I pass Clarke another crate. “It’s a total gamechanger.”

“Speaking of gamechanger,” Bellamy walks up behind me, carrying a crate of fabric. He picks up something white off the top and unfolds it, revealing a white t-shirt with the words, ‘Don’t Eat Watermelon Seeds’.

I furrow my brow. “I don’t get it.”

“Look,” he turns it to the side. Along the bottom half the seams are ruched, allowing for stretch. “It’s a maternity shirt.”

I gasp and grab it from him. Could it really be?

“I also found two pairs of maternity pants that I think might fit you. A lot of the clothes had mildew or were just in really bad shape from being in a mountain for a hundred years, but I managed to find a few. Also some diaper pins that hadn’t rusted – I think those are in another box – but no baby clothes, unfortunately. They were all way beyond usable. There was a sewing kit though, so we can make whatever we don’t have.”

I shake my head in disbelief at the treasure trove he holds in his hands. “Didn’t you get anything for yourself?”

He shrugs. “I couldn’t think of anything I needed more.”


	16. Sixteen

_**20 weeks 4 days October 12, 2149** _

The past four days had been spent making trips back and forth to Mount Weather for supplies and shoving it all in the dropship - the only building we had. Clarke studies the plans laid out in front of us. She’d sketched a rough outline of camp on a large piece of drawing paper, torn from the book Finn gave her long ago. “We should start building cabins. Give me ideas of what else we need. We need a medical facility, for sure.”

“I want pharma to be separate,” I say. “If someone needs to be quarantined, we don’t need it spreading to the medicine.”

“That’s a good point.” Clarke scribbles it down. “Any other ideas?”

“I want a workshop,” Raven demands, laying a greasy wrench on the table which Clarke promptly shoves away. 

“We need an indoor kitchen and a dining hall,” Bellamy says. “I’m tired of trying to build fires in the rain so we can eat.”

“What about showers?” Jasper suggests. “We could have a collection tank for rainwater. I salvaged some pipe from Mount Weather.”

“I would kill for a shower,” Raven groans.

“Good,” Clarke says. “How many cabins do you think we’ll need to house everyone?”

“We should take a census first,” I say. “That way we'll know how many cabins to build and to know who has beef with each other so we don’t force them into the same cabin. It’ll keep the peace.”

“You two get one to yourselves,” Raven says. “You’re both great, but there’s no way I’m sharing a cabin with a screaming baby I didn’t make, and I think most people around here feel the same.”

“Glad to hear the support, Raven.”

“I think you’re right.” Clarke tears a sheet of paper from the notebook and hands it to me, along with a pen. “Go get a census. We need to get these cabins going if we’re going to get them done before winter.”

I exit the tent and walk into the courtyard, deciding to just go station by station and tent by tent. The closest to me is the smokehouse, and I can tell by the shadow the identity of the only person inside as he hangs up parts of a wild boar - one of the first kills since expanding our territory. Luckily, we hadn't been caught, or the Grounders simply didn't care. Whatever the case, it didn't matter to me, I was just happy to be able to eat again.

“Miller.”

He doesn’t look at me. “What do you want?”

I tap the paper with my pen. “I’ve come to take a census to get a count of how many cabins we’ll need.” I hesitate. “And to make sure we separate the people who hate each other.”

“Well, you already know who I am.” He tosses some wet leaves on the fire to bring the heat down, still refusing to look at me. “And you already know who to keep far away from me.”

“Miller,” I plead.

“I guess you already have a cabin mate. Bellamy.”

“Look.” I come closer. “I did not mean for that to happen. You can’t look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t have sex with anyone during the first week we were down here. We were all stupid, horny teenagers back then,” I laugh, trying to break the tension. 

Finally, he looks at me. “I didn’t. I was too busy keeping us alive.” He hangs another piece of meat. “I only ever wanted Bryan anyway. But he’s up there,” he points to the sky, “dead, and I’m down here, alive. At least if it wasn’t for you, we could be dead together on the Ark.”

“I was protecting you. I wanted to save you from the Sky Box more than I wanted my freedom and my life. You deserve better. You always have. I was trying to give that to you.”

“You already have the mothering instinct. Always have.” He wipes off his hands. “Always making irrational, poorly thought out decisions that always end up hurting someone. Or killing them. You only know how to make snap decisions. You don’t think anything through.”

I turn away, trying to bite back the tears. The mothering remark struck a chord in me, hurting more than anything he else he could’ve said and he knows it. His words break bones. I scribble his name down on the paper and walk out of the smokehouse. 

I take down the names of the guards posted at the fence, of the ones cooking dinner over the fire, of the ones cleaning guns, of the ones gutting fish, and of the ones divvying up foraged plants for the evening meal. Miller was the only one who asked to be separated from someone. 

“Here’s your list.” I lay the paper in front of Clarke and take a seat at the table across from her, rubbing my forehead. “No one hates anyone so much they won’t be in the same cabin, except for Miller, who hates me. But I suppose getting a single cabin with Bellamy will solve that issue, won’t it?”

Clarke looks over the list. “Why does he hate you?”

I sigh and lean back in my chair. “Because of what I did to get sent down here.”

_Once I’m out of the classroom, I take a left down the hall. I slip on my jacket, despite being too warm already from my pace._

_**How are you going to use it to help us?** _

_**How much does he weigh?** _

_At the end of the hall is the pharma lab. I peer in through the window in the door._

_Shit. The first-year students are in there._

_I take a quick step back. I think one of them saw me. Too late now. I shove open the door and walk right in._

_Their teacher smiles the moment she lays eyes on me. “Morgan! I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve seen you!”_

_“It’s nice to see you too, Ms. Delany.” I force a smile as the door falls shut behind me with a thud._

_“Are you still in pharma training?”_

_“Yes, I am. I’m in my fifth year now. One more and I graduate.”_

_She sighs, remembering the time when I was in her class as a curious twelve-year-old. We didn’t even get to handle the drugs until our third year. “I’m so glad. I was worried you’d quit, knowing how you struggled with the equations.”_

_“Practice makes perfect, right?” I gesture to the cabinets. “Anyway, Mr. Hayes sent me over to retrieve a vial of pentobarbital. We’re discussing what happens when someone gets floated."_

_“Dreadful stuff,” she shakes her head. “But necessary, I suppose. Do you need my keys?”_

_Since when did they lock it up? The name of the drug used in the euthanasia process of floating was always kept a trade secret to prevent accidental or purposeful deaths. “Keys?”_

_“Here,” she says, pulling the keys from her lab coat. “It’s been a pretty recent thing. Apparently, someone broke into Medical in search of drugs, so the council decided it was best we keep the strongest stuff under lock and key now.”_

_“Thanks,” I catch the keys. “I hadn’t heard about that.”_

_The lab is in two parts, the first half, the one I was just in, being the larger of the two: the manufacturing lab. The second part is behind a door: the storage room._

_The storage room opens with a slide of my ID card. I flick on the light and to my surprise, two teenage boys stand in the corner, leaned up against the counter, passing a bag of something between them._

_“Are you supposed to be in here?” I ask._

_“Are you?” the taller one asks, puffing his chest out. He wears a pair of ski goggles on his head, despite having never encountered snow in his life._

_I stare at the pair for a moment, debating on telling the truth. They both look to be my age, so if they were recruited by pharma and had any business being in here, I would know it. “No.”_

_“Well it’s settled then,” he says. “No one’s in here.”_

_“I suppose so.” Sure enough, behind their heads is a newly installed metal cabinet with a lock on the front. “Would you mind stepping out of the way? I need to get into the cabinet.”_

_“Oh sure, sure,” the shorter one says, tucking something into his jacket as he steps away._

_“Just replace what you take,” I say. “Sixty-one people depend on that to function.”_

_“How do you know what we have?” Goggles asks._

_“Please.” I hold up my ID card. “I’m a fifth-year. Give me more credit than that. I know what cannabis smells like.”_

_I unlock the cabinet and scan through its contents until my eyes rest on the clear vial of pentobarbital._ _I place on it on the counter and look through the other cabinets for a syringe and needle._

_“What’s this? Pen-too-barb-bit-all," Goggles enunciates, butchering it. "Have you heard of this, Monty? I’ve never heard of this one. It’s gotta be good if it’s in a locked cabinet though.”_

_“Put that down!” I scold. He shrugs and is about to just drop it carelessly on the counter. I clamp down on his wrist. “Don’t you dare break it, either.”_

_“Geez. It must be something good then. I’d take it, but you seem to be set on keeping it for yourself, and I don’t want to take any chances on our agreement.”_

_“It’s not for me.” I glance down at my data pad, reading the latest message._

_**160? I don’t know. What does it matter?** _

_I try to do the math in my head. Pentobarbital is also_ _used as a sedative in lower doses, sometimes for seizures in emergencies or before surgery. I stick the needle in the vial and turn it upside down, drawing the liquid into the syringe._

_“We could’ve been that cool, Monty. We could’ve been out there saving lives.”_

_I lock up the cabinet and cap and pocket the syringe. I carry the vial in my hand and close the door to the stock room behind me._

_“Thank you for the keys, Ms. Delany.” I hold up the vial. “I found it.”_

_“You’re welcome, Morgan. Glad I could help.”_

_As I turn to close the door to the lab behind me, I get a glimpse of a dozen twelve-year-olds looking back at me with the mix of wonderment and jealousy I had at that age. ‘I hope I grow up to be her’._

_**Where are you? Where's the cadet?** _

**_I just heard his radio. He’s just been assigned the Sky Bridge. I’m hiding out in the janitor’s closet in Alpha Station. Currently considering the air vents._ **

**_I’m on my way._ **

**_Don’t do anything stupid._ **

_The Sky Bridge is all the way across Alpha station from here. I tuck the vial in my pocket and maneuver my way through hordes of the working class on their way to lunch, trying not to draw attention to myself. By the time I arrive on the Sky Bridge, it’s cleared of people, save the lone young guard making his rounds up and down the hall._

_“You should be at lunch,” he says to me._

_I think fast. I didn’t plan this out this far. I pull up a map of the Ark on my data pad and hold it out to him. “Can you help me find B-deck? I’m a pharma student running an errand for Dr. Jackson. One of the mechanics is in critical condition after an accident and I’m bringing him meds.”_

_He studies me for a moment. “B-deck is restricted. I’m going to need to check in with my supervisor first.”_

_“Please. I don’t have time to waste. Just show me where it is.”_

_He puts his hand on his radio, bringing it up to his lips. “This is –”_

_I plunge the syringe into his neck._

_He tries to grab at me for a few seconds before the drugs slow his nervous system down, promptly dropping him on the floor. A few doors down is the janitors closet Miller is hiding out in, so I grab the young guard’s feet and haul him down the hall._

_“It’s me!” I whisper-yell. “It’s Morgan. Let me in.”_

_The lock clicks and the door cracks open. A brown eye peeks out at me and the unconscious guard then goes wide. “Morgan.”_

_“Shh! Help me get him in here!”_

_Miller grabs his shoulders and pulls him in the closet and shuts the door behind us. “Are you crazy?”_

_“It’s fine, it’s fine,” I promise. “I only gave him enough to knock him out. That’s why I needed to know how much he weighs.”_

_“Did he see you?”_

_“Well, yeah, he did,” I say. “He saw me as soon as I turned the corner. There wasn’t much I could do at that point.”_

_“What did you give him? Is it going to make him forget all this?”_

_I pause. I hadn’t considered that. Maybe I should’ve given him a benzo instead._

_“Oh my god, Morgan. Do you ever think anything through?”_

_“He’s not going to be able to tell on you like this,” I offer. “I just don’t want you to lose your cadetship. You’ll be an amazing guard, Miller.”_

_Miller runs his hands down his face. “Are you going to keep him like this forever? Like some kind of pet in your closet? He could’ve already reported me. Or worse yet, he didn’t see me, and now we’re both in deep shit for no reason.”_

_“I –”_

_He shakes his head and slides his back down the wall, sitting on the floor. “Why couldn’t you just leave me be? I was never going to be a guard. I was always going to end up in lock up or floated. Or both.”_

_I sit down next to him. “You don’t know that.”_

_"I know I can’t help myself. Once I get the thought in my head, I just have to have something, even if I don’t need it.” He opens up a backpack sitting next to him and produces a gold-plated globe, a perfect rendition of Earth before the bombs. He gives it a half-hearted spin. “What the hell am I going to do with this?”_

_I reach out to touch it, running my fingers along the outline of Australia. “I didn’t even know that existed. It’s beautiful. No wonder it caught your eye.”_

_“I saw it the last time Jaha called me into his office for a warning. It was sitting on his desk.” He runs his fingers along the equator thoughtfully, then throws the globe across the room where it smashes against the door and comes loose from its axis._

_"What was that for?” I ask, scrambling to pick up the pieces. “If there’s anyone out there, they’re about to find us now.”_

_“It doesn’t matter anymore. This is it. For both of us.”_

_“We can still fix this.”_

_“How?”_

_I turn my eyes to the young guard, no more than fifteen, looking much younger in his sleeping state. The thought churns my stomach, but I have to save him._

_“I don’t like that look.”_

_I look at Miller._

_"No. Absolutely not.”_

_“We have to kill him.”_

_“_ We _?” Miller shakes his head. “No._ We _are not doing anything. And we are certainly not killing him. He’s just a kid.”_

_“Do you have any other ideas?” I prompt._

_He’s silent._

_“Right, well.” I pull out the vial from one pocket and the syringe and needle from the other. I tip the vial and start drawing up the syringe, unsure of the amount it will take. We hadn’t learned how to perform executions._

_“What is that?”_

_“Pentobarbital.”_

_“Will it work?”_

_I grimace. “It’ll work. It’s what we use when someone gets floated.”_

_“You drug them first?”_

_“It’s much more pleasant than having the air sucked out of your lungs while your blood boils in subzero space.” He gives me a sick look. “We’re not monsters, Miller. Not even during this.”_

_“This,” he gestures to the scene in the room. “This is absolutely the work of a monster. Only someone deeply twisted inside could decide to kill a kid because they_ might _have seen someone committing a crime. He was just doing his job.”_

_I kneel down at the guard’s side, roll up his shirtsleeve and stick the needle in. “We’re beyond that now, and you know it. Don’t blame this all on me.”_

_“Don’t blame it all on you?” he says incredulously. “I specifically told you not to come. I told you not to do anything stupid. I told you not to waste your life’s work. You’ve wanted to work in medicine your whole life. Now I see why.”_

_“Yes, Miller,” my tone dripping in sarcasm, “I wanted to work in medicine because I wanted to be the one to kill someone.” I shake my head, forcing myself to inject the drug. “Pharmacists don’t even do these anyway.”_

_“I don’t want anything to do with this.”_

_“So don’t have anything to do with it,” I say, drawing up the next syringe. After it’s administered, I sit back on my heels, hugging my knees, waiting for it to take effect. I hold on to his wrist, feeling his pulse, feeling his entire life force slip away beneath my fingers. My eyes burn and my hands shake._

_“Is he dead yet?”_

_“He is,” I confirm, struggling to speak around the knot in my throat. “But we’re not finished.”_

_“What else are you planning on doing to him? Are you going to cut out his heart too?”_

_“Hand me that knife. The one on the top shelf over there.”_

_“_ _You’re not serious.”_

_“Now!” I command. He looks startled at my tone and fumbles around grabbing for it. I take the knife and put it in the guard’s hand. “Step back.”_

_“Why?”_

_I hold my hand over the boy’s and dig the blade into his throat, slicing it open. Some blood pours out, but not as much as I’d hoped to make the scene believable._

_I stand up, my right hand sticky with blood, seeping underneath my fingernails and settling in my cuticles. “You go out first, while everyone is still at lunch. Take the globe. If anyone gets caught, let it be me. I don’t have anyone left to try to make proud.”_

_“I’m never going to make my dad proud.”_

_"Not with that attitude.” I give him a smile._

_"How are you smiling right now?”_

_I frown. “I’m just trying to cheer you up."_

_"Cheer me up? I just witnessed a murder, by you.” He slings his bag over his shoulder. “I was right. You are sick. I never want to see you ever again."_

_The door slams shut behind him._

_Alone in the poorly lit closet, I look down at the scene I just caused, at the blood spilled on the floor, at the syringe and empty vial, at the vacant body of the life I just ended. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t even know if Miller was going to be caught. How did I go from zero to sixty so fast? Maybe he was right. Maybe I am a monster._

_I sit down against a pile of boxes, trying to gather my nerve to leave the room._

_I don’t get the chance. Less than a minute later, the door swings open, filling the room with bright light. Three shadows loom over me. As my eyes adjust, I see they’re guards, and the one in the middle is Miller’s father._

_"Morgan Leven, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of Corbin Ibraham, for the unlawful use of restricted drugs, and for the theft of restricted drugs. Do you understand your charges?”_

_I look up at them and hold my hands out, waiting for the handcuffs. What was the point in fighting? “Yes.”_


	17. Seventeen

_**22 weeks 6 days October 28, 2149** _

I rap my knuckles against the wooden door. “Am I still welcome here?”

Althea opens the door, a wave of heat from the fire hitting me in the face as the air rushes out. “Yeah. Come in.”

“Listen,” I take off my hat and gloves – treasures from Mount Weather – and lay them on the table, laying my bag down on the floor. “I didn’t mean for Clarke to see any of that.”

“I know you didn’t.” She leans her head against her hand, propped up on the table. “It’s just every extra person that knows about her nightblood is an extra chance that she gets taken away, and I don’t think my heart can take it if that happens.”

I sit down next to her. “I know. If Clarke dares to cross that line, I’ll take care of it personally.”

“Did you mean what you said? That you would kill her if she did?”

I sigh. Did I really mean that? Could I really take another life? When does it stop being murder and start being justifiable cause? “Honestly, I’m not sure. But she would regret it.”

“Good,” she says. “Because I won’t have my daughter around someone who thinks violence is the answer to everything.”

I swallow, worried that one day I’ll snap and lose everything I’ve built here. “How’s her cut?” 

Althea lifts Iris’s hat to reveal a thin line across her forehead with tiny dots on either side from the stitches, now healed over, but still ashy gray. “You can still tell she’s a nightblood from the scar so I’ve been fighting to keep this hat on her.” She brushes her fuzzy hat hair back with her hand. “Hopefully it’ll fade soon.” She turns to me, her eyes brightening when she reads the ridiculous t-shirt Bellamy was so proud to bring me. “I see you’ve found some maternity clothes somewhere.”

I laugh. “That was all Bellamy. We found them in Mount Weather.” I have to admit, the shirt is kind of cute. “Raven and Monty think the mountain might be unstable to we’ve decided to just take the stuff we need and build cabins back at camp. Clarke came with me this time so she could tell Indra the mountain is all hers.” Althea draws back. “I made it very clear this visit would be just me and you and she’s fine waiting outside the village.” She seems to relax. “As much as I would love to live in a safe enclosed space, one that we could lock the doors to, the dropship feels like home now.”

“Is Bellamy still being the ‘total ass’ about it all?”

I shake my head. “No. I think we’re both starting to pull ourselves together now and try to put our problems aside. We’re over halfway now. Not much time to waste. He started working on a cabin for us last week." I laugh. "You can’t keep a newborn baby in a tent in February, you know."

She gives me a tight smile. “I’m glad. I’m sure parenting is much easier and more fun when it’s a team sport.” She reaches up and grabs her book from the top shelf and flips open to a page. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to find pokeweed today. It’s a little late in the season, but I had to wait until Iris weaned. You have to be very careful with this because it’s in the same plant family as hemlock, which I’m sure you remember. They’re called nightshades. I’ll teach you what they look like, but you can’t touch them, because we don’t know if they can pass through the skin to the baby. Nyko helped me with these for the last two years. When you get home, you’ll need someone to help you, too. Just don’t pick one of the girls. Just to be safe.”

I eye the plant in front of me. “If this stuff is so potentially dangerous, why do you use it as medicine?”

“Because it’s an excellent anti-inflammatory. You just have to be very careful and make sure it’s boiled enough times and that you change the water out in between. Here,” she says, pouring water and a thick stemmed plant into the pot hanging over the fire. “I’ll show you.”

Just as we cross the threshold of Arkadia (guess what nerd came up with that) my eyes land on the first non-female person I see, who happens to have just finished hanging this morning’s haul in the smokehouse. “Murphy.”

He wipes his hands on his pants and starts walking toward us. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Morgan, self-made celebrity.”

I roll my eyes. “Hardly.” I clap his shoulder and turn to Clarke, who Althea begrudgingly gave the pokeweed too. “This is my assistant. You can give the pokeweed to him.”

Clarke tosses Murphy the pouch containing the potentially poisonous root, which he nearly misses. 

“I need you to handle that for me since it’s still toxic in its current form,” I tell him.

“Woah now, do you suddenly think you have privilege since you’re carrying Bellamy’s spawn?” Murphy tosses the bag at me and walks off. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay well, next time you get sick, you’ll have to find medicine from somewhere else.” I shrug. “Maybe someone could steal it for you.”

He spins on his heel. His voice contains thinly veiled rage. “Who told you that story?”

“I worked in pharma.” I spin the bag by its drawstring. “Doesn’t matter. I guess I’ll just take the chance, and if anything happens to me or the baby, you can tell Bellamy what happened.”

Murphy snatches the bag. “Fine. But this is the only time I’m helping you.”

I open the flap of the pharma tent. “After you.”

“I don’t know who you think you are these days,” he says, throwing the bag down on the table.

I lay my bag down by the door. “A liability,” I answer. “Come on. It has to be boiled three times. No point in sitting down in here."

He huffs. “Seriously? It’s started raining.”

I peek out the tent. “It’s just drizzling. You can still build a fire.”

“Drizzling is worse. It just gets you wet enough to be annoyed. It’s like the blue balls of weather.” Murphy takes a seat, kicking his feet up. “I’m sure Bellamy knows all about it.”

I turn around. “Why would Bellamy know all about it?”

“Please,” Murphy waves me off. “If you two were doing it he wouldn’t look so thoughtful when you walk by.”

“Since when is being thoughtful a sign of unfulfilled desire? Look at me.” I smack his feet away and sit down across from him. “Seriously, look at me and tell me we’ve never had sex.”

Murphy plays with the drawstring of the bag absentmindedly. “No, I think you have. _Clearly_.” He turns his attention on me, his gaze an attempt to pin me down for the truth. “I just don’t think you are now. So tell me, which of you is icked out because of the baby?”

“You do know that the baby is all sealed up in there right? Did you even pay attention in health class?”

“I know enough about how it works to know that. But it doesn’t make it feel less weird.”

I shrug. “It’s not weird.”

“Then why aren’t you having sex?”

“How do you know we’re not?”

“Your tent is always too quiet. And again, the way he looks at you. I know it’s not that he’s turned off by the whole pregnancy thing, so I’m guessing it’s a you problem.”

I cross my arms. “It’s not a problem. And it’s not your business.”

He throws his hands up. “Fine, fine. I just state the truth.”

“There’s no truth in it. He looks thoughtful every time he sees me because I’m a walking reminder of a ticking time bomb that we are in no way prepared for down here.”

“Maybe I'm wrong,” he stands. “Anyway, if you’re no longer in need of my services –”

I rush to beat him to the door. I peek out over my shoulder. “It’s stopped raining.”

"Seriously?" He looks out for himself and sighs. “I’ll go get the firewood.”

Covered up to my ears, I can see my breath in the night air. The combination of the rain and the season dropped the temperature rapidly, leaving my skin covered in goosebumps.

Through the tent I see the light of the fire still going, the shadows of the last few people awake moving around it. With Bellamy’s silhouette illuminated against the firelight, I see his unmistakable shivers. We were just barely heading into winter and it was clear the what I feared was already upon us – being too cold to do anything, even sleep. 

No matter how much I concentrate, my brain still won't turn off. Murphy’s words gnaw at the pit in my stomach. “Hey, Bellamy?”

“What?”

“Do you think people still believe this is real? The relationship, I mean.”

He rolls over. “What makes you say that?”

“Murphy doesn’t think it’s real. At least, that’s what I got out of that conversation.”

He props himself up on his elbow. “What did he say?”

I hesitate. “He says you look. . . unhappy.”

He frowns. “Do I come across as unhappy to people?”

I shrug. “I don’t think so. You seem alright to me. I mean, aside from the natural impending stress of a baby coming in the dead of winter," I half laugh, as if laughing at the situation lightens it. I tug at my shirt. “You always said we could just have an amicable public breakup if things went south. If you don’t feel fulfilled –”

He laughs. “Fulfilled? I’m getting a son or a daughter out of this.” He looks at me. “And I’m getting a lifelong friend.”

I tilt my head. “No, I mean.” I bite my lip, trying to force the words out. “If you’re not happy, sexually –”

He laughs again, shaking his head. “I have far, far bigger problems than my sex life right now. I'm not concerned with it.”

“You don’t regret the arrangement?”

“Do you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Good,” he nods. “Problem solved.”

My teeth chatter and I yawn, making the yawn chatter. “If only we could solve the temperature problem.”

He opens the covers. “Come here. Bring your blanket.”

I don’t hesitate. I survived one night sharing a bed with him and nothing happened, why not another if it means we both sleep?

He spreads my blanket out over his own and I crawl in beside him, my back to his chest. Across the tent, my bed looks lonely without me in it, but the double blankets and warm body beside me doesn’t leave much room for sympathy. I feel my body relax for the first time in hours, the stress of trying to keep warm lifted from my shoulders.

“You could do that thing again,” he says. “If you want to.”

I roll over halfway. “What thing?”

“When you put your leg over mine. You said it was more comfortable.”

My cheeks turn red and I’m praying he can’t see that well in the dim light. “Oh. That.”

“I’m just saying I don’t mind is all. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

I pull the covers up around my face, both to keep warm and to hide my embarrassment. I still can't believe I did that. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”


	18. Eighteen

_**24 weeks 5 days November 10, 2149** _

“Shouldn’t you be working?” Murphy asks, leaning over the table of leaves we’re supposed to be sorting. As it turns out, he rather liked working with me in pharma, and had stuck around.

“I can’t help it,” I grin, holding my hand over my stomach, trying to feel it again. Feeling it moving around in there made it real, and it was such a unique feeling I couldn’t help but want to spend my days waiting to feel the next movement. “I bet if you came over here and spoke nicely to it it’d move for you too.”

He picks a leaf from our center pile and discards it to the pile on the left. “Are you going to name her It or are you going to pick a real name?” 

I raise my eyebrows. “Her?”

“Yeah,” he says as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s a girl. Shouldn’t you know that by now? Mother’s intuition or something?”

“I do kind of hope it’s a girl from a practical standpoint. Althea has a bunch of tiny dresses and ribbons from when Iris was a baby. It’d be easier to just use all the hand-me-downs from her. I’d love a little mini-me with little red pigtails.”

“I’m going to start a poll,” Murphy says, leaning back in his chair to reach across the table to grab my notebook. He tears out a sheet and draws a rough chart. “When’s your due date?”

I toss three leaves into the second pile. “February 25th.”

“I’m betting girl, February 28th, 7:44 pm.” He signs his name next to his bet and slides it over to me. 

I hover my pen over the paper. “I’m going to say girl, February 25th, 3:25 pm.” I lean back, looking at my choices. “That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Born on her due date, nicely in the afternoon.”

Murphy glances at the pile of leaves in front of us and back at the poll. “Do you want to ditch work and go take everyone’s bet?”

I pause for a minute, pretending to think it over. “Yes.”

The tent closest to the pharma tent is Raven’s work tent. Murphy flips open the flap without warning, making Raven, Clarke, and Monty jump. 

“Hello ladies and Monty,” he says. He slams the paper down on the table and taps it with his pen. “We have some information we need to take down.”

“What is so important it can’t wait?” Clarke asks.

Murphy points to my belly with his pen. “I need each of your bets on sex, birthdate, and birthtime.”

Clarke rubs her brow. “It’s not due for another three months. This can wait.”

“I’m going to say boy,” Raven says, “March 1st, and 8:02 AM.”

“What do we get if we win the bet?” Monty asks.

“Monty –,” Clarke starts.

Murphy holds a finger to her lips. “You get an entire week off work and bragging rights.”

“Who made that decision?” Clarke asks.

“I did,” Murphy says. “Just then.”

“Girl, March 2nd, 11:13 PM,” Monty declares.

“Clarke?” Murphy asks.

“I really don’t have time for this,” she shakes her head. “We’re trying to figure out a practical way to design the kitchen and dining hall.”

“Please,” I puff out my lower lip. “For me?”

“Fine,” she caves. “Boy, February 21st, 9:26 PM. I’ll try to go easy on you. These guys have you being almost a week overdue.”

“First time mothers are more likely to go late,” Monty says. “It’s stats.”

“What do you know about stats?” Raven scoffs.

I smile. “We’ll leave you guys be.”

“Where to next?” Murphy asks.

“The watchtowers,” I say. “I want to know Harper’s bet.”

Her ear against my stomach, Harper looks deadly focused.

“This is a boy,” she says confidently. “And he told me he wants to be born February 26th at 5:21 PM, so mark your calendars.”

“I’m glad he told you.” I pull my shirt down. “It makes it so much easier to plan my day.”

She flips her hair over her shoulder. “Just the baby whisperer over here.”

Behind her, leaves begin to crunch and branches break outside the gate, the sounds heading straight for us. Harper draws her gun, focused on the gate.

“It’s some of ours!” one guards calls down from the watchtower. “Let them in!”

Two girls draw open the gate and Miller comes stumbling through it, carrying another boy in his arms. He’s one of the younger ones, maybe sixteen. 

“Get Clarke,” Miller gasps, struggling to hold him. Murphy takes the injured boy and carries him into the dropship, disappearing behind the curtain.

“She’s in Raven’s work tent,” I order one of the girls. I turn to Miller. “What happened to him?” 

“We were out hunting,” he gasps. “Corey thought he heard a branch snap – we thought it might be a deer – and then all of a sudden he just drops to the ground. There’s something in his shoulder. It looks like a dart.”

“Okay,” I touch his arm gently. “We’re going to take care of him. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he waves me off. “Go help Corey.”

By the time I make it into the dropship, Clarke is already in there, examining his shoulder. 

“That’s the weird thing,” Corey says, his eyes unfocused. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Well,” Clarke says, looking at his shoulder again, “We should just be able to pull it out.”

“Wait!” I stop her, trying to catch my breath. The carvings on the dart look familiar. “Don’t touch it.”

“Why not?” Clarke asks. “He says it doesn’t even hurt. It’s not really bleeding that much either, and it doesn’t look deep.”

“Cut off his shirt,” I tell her. “Check the skin first.”

“I am not ruining a perfectly good shirt for that. We can just take the dart out and then look at the skin.”

“Fine,” I concede. Clarke has never been one you can tell what to do. “But don’t touch it with your bare hands.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“Those carvings,” I point, kneeling down beside her at the boy’s side. “That handprint. It’s Azgeda.”

“How do you know?”

“A couple months ago, while I was visiting Althea,” I explain, “A little girl was brought in, having been struck by an Azgeda arrow that was meant for her father. She died.”

“Well an arrow causes a lot more damage than a dart. I’m the doctor here, remember?” She eyes the dart, trying to figure out the angle it went in at so she can pull it out. 

“It’s poisoned,” I blurt out. I smack her hands away. “Seriously, don’t touch it.”

“Clarke,” Murphy says, gently pulling down the collar of the boy’s t-shirt.

The skin is white as snow.

Clarke rocks back on her heels, taking in the sight. “But why?”

I give him the side eye, and I can tell by the look on his face he already knows what I’ll ask for. “Murphy, go get that silver tin from the pharma tent.” After Murphy leaves the dropship, I pull Clarke aside. “We have to give him hemlock.”

“What’s hemlock?” she whispers.

“It’s a plant. It’s poison.”

“Is that what they used on the dart?”

“No,” I shake my head. “The death from hemlock is much more compassionate that the death from the spider venom in that dart.”

“You’re going to kill him?” she whisper-yells. “You will not!”

"He will die, Clarke. His fate is already sealed. Let me make it easier on him.”

“You absolutely will not.”

“If we wait until he starts bleeding, it’s too late to help him die peacefully.”

“Surely Althea’s taught you how to control bleeding by now. Just use that.”

“It won’t work for this. It’s not a cut in his skin. It’ll be all his blood vessels bursting at once. Then we’ll all just be waiting around for him to stop screaming and die.”

“You will not give him anything without my say so.”

“Guys?” Corey calls out. “My head is killing me.”

I look at Clarke. “Too late now.”

Bellamy and Miller have gathered just inside the door, waiting with bated breath. 

“I have the hemlock,” Murphy says, flinging back the dropship curtain. “Woah.”

Corey’s eyes, once a shimmering gray, alight with the wonder of Earth, are now ringed with red. Bloody tears begin to drip down his face as he grabs at his head, threating to tear out the hair. “Please.” His voice is trembling, slow, and weak. “It hurts so bad.”

I share a look with Clarke, who’s now dabbing his eyes, wiping away the reddish tears. She moves his hair back, revealing a stream of blood coming from his ears. She closes her eyes for a moment and her hands on her knees. “Do it," she concedes.

I open the tin and remove three leaves, rolling them together into a cylinder. I’m not sure if he has long enough for it work. “Chew on this,” I order. “As finely as you can, and swallow it. It’ll help.”

“It hurts so much,” he whimpers. 

I take his hand, running my thumb over the back of it. “I know.”

“Make it stop,” he begs. 

“What I just gave you will help, I promise.”

“When?”

I squeeze his hand. “Soon. It might take a little while, but soon, I promise.”

“No, no.” He begins to thrash around, his fingernails digging into the back of my hand. “Now. Do it now! Kill me, please,” he begs, his silver eyes boring into mine, begging for relief. “Please!”

I turn to Clarke. “We can’t save him. We never could.”

“Let’s just give the hemlock some time.” She tries to wipe away at the blood behind his ears, but he just screams at her touch. It’s a sound unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was purely helpless, total agony. It was the sound of the dying.

“Clarke.”

She bites her lip. “Murphy give me your knife.”

He hands it to her and she holds the tip of it on the side of his throat, ready to plunge the blade into his windpipe.

“Wait.”

Exasperated, she looks back at me. “What is it now?”

“He’ll die faster if you cut from side to side, but it has to be deep.”

Murphy gives me a strange look. “How do you know that?”

I sigh. “Experience.”

Her hand hovering over the boy’s neck, she drops the knife, instead crossing the room for Bellamy’s gun. “In peace, may you leave the shore.”

Murphy and I move to the entrance of the door, standing close with Bellamy and Miller, giving Clarke space. Bellamy wraps an arm around me, pulling my back into his chest, holding me tight. She takes aim. My voice is quiet, lone in the tension of the moment. “In love, may you find the next.”

All together, “Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey on the ground.”

He sleeps.

I sit with my back against the wall, watching four of the older boys dig another grave. They work in silence, the only sound coming from the scrape of the shovels and the dirt being slung to the side. Number twenty-seven.

Miller comes to stand beside me. “I thought it’d been insensitive to make you carry this up from the river.”

I look up at him. In his hands is a large smooth stone, brown and grainy. He sits it down in front of me. “Since when are you sensitive about anything with me?”

He looks to the side at the workers, squinting. “I really just didn’t want your boyfriend to yell at me.”

This rock, formed from millennia of pressure and shaped by decades of water, was not meant to be a memorial. I look at it sourly. “Am I still the designated headstone maker?”

“Well,” he says. “You have the best handwriting.”

I take the stone from him. He hands me a knife. 

It’s like a flash from the past, handing tools of destruction to each other. “Like old times, huh?”

He doesn’t say anything. 

I raise my eyebrows, shaking my head. “Too soon, Morgan.”

He gives me a curt nod and turns to leave, hands in his pockets. “Thanks for what you did for him. Or tried to do, anyway. That was good of you.”

I’m too surprised to say anything. Finally, I manage, “It’s my job.”

“Well,” he says. “Now your job is to give him a headstone. So he’s not forgotten.”

The knife in my hand finally registers with my brain. “Right.”

Later that night, I crawl into bed next to Bellamy, my back aching from the long day, but my heart hurting even more. I snuggle up to him in the dark, whether for warmth or comfort I don’t know. I just know I don't need to be alone with my thoughts right now, not when all I can think about is how that poor boy must've felt in his last hours. He was nothing more than a causality caught in the crossfires of a political war he played no part in. He wasn't a warrior. He wasn't even a guard. 

My heart sinks as I realize who they must've been aiming for. The one who followed me back and forth to TonDc, who carried a gun every step of the way, who sits in the watchtowers now, waiting to protect the seventy-five of his fellow criminals who are left.

What if they try again? What if there is no one else there to take the poison for him?

What if they catch us on a trip to TonDc, and it's me who's caught in the crosshairs?

What if it's him and I have to watch him die?

Bellamy whispers in my ear, "Are you crying?"

I nod, the words lost.

His arm sneaks across my chest, holding me close to him, trying to be comforting, but I realize it’s the same position he held me in as Corey took his last agonizing breath, and that just makes it all so much worse.


	19. Nineteen

**_26 weeks 0 days November 19, 2149_ **

“Need any help?”

Clarke stands, brushing hair out of her face. She had been crouched over the boxes from Mount Weather in the dropship, some containing surgical tools and mechanical tools, others with pill bottles and cutlery and dishes. “We need to organize some of this,” she says. “It’s ridiculous. You can’t find anything in here.”

I sit down in front of a box of fabric. I pull each piece out and sort them by size. “It’s hard to organize when we have nowhere to put any of it.”

Clarke separates the tools by what should and should not have dirt on them. She wipes off a greasy retractor on her pants, muttering under her breath. “The others are working on it.” It was hard to miss the sound of axes cutting notches into wood, the grunts of effort as logs were hoisted one on top of the other. They began at first light and continued on until the solar lights died at night. It felt like the camp never slept. “They finished the second dorm late last night and your cabin is almost done. Once the other two dorms are built and everyone has somewhere to sleep, the kitchen is next, and then the infirmary, and the bath house, and pharma, and the storehouse.” Clarke nods, reassuring herself. “It’ll get done eventually, but not before spring.”

“I’m looking forward to living somewhere with walls again,” I say, pushing a box of folded clothes away and reaching for the next one. “Especially if no one locks me in at night.”

“I wish I got to go to the day room,” she says. “I spent a year in solitary.”

“A whole year by yourself?”

“They were afraid I would tell everyone about the oxygen failure.” Clarke folds a pair of jeans with an attitude. “I could’ve saved them all. They could’ve come down with us and they’d all be alive.”

The box in front of me contains two teacups and a matching teapot, as well as one exquisitely designed plate, all surviving pieces of a matching set. They’re white and have cobalt blue designs of flowers and vines, the edges rimmed in gold. The ceramic feels thin and fragile. I carefully place them back in the box and set it to the side. “You can’t blame yourself for that, Clarke.”

“My father did everything he could to ensure the survival of the human race.” Emotion rises in her voice. “It was a cause he was willing to die for.” She pauses, gathering her composure. “He died for nothing. They died anyway.”

I crawl over to her. “No, no. It wasn’t for nothing.” I rub her back in soothing circles. Tears drip off her cheek. “Look where you are,” I gesture to the space around her. “It wasn’t for nothing. Bringing it to their attention brought his daughter home. To Earth.”

Her lip quivers. “But my mom –”

“Is so proud of her daughter for being brave enough and strong enough to survive here.” I smile. “And she’s even prouder of all you’re doing to help a friend with a ridiculous dream that could get her killed.”

She wipes her eyes and leans over to reach in a box to the side. “Speaking of dreams, I found a stethoscope.”

“That’s great,” I smile, a little confused at how a stethoscope relates here.

She puts the stethoscope in her ears. “Lift up your shirt. You’re far along enough we should be able to hear the heartbeat.” 

I lift my shirt, revealing the latest additions to my growing belly – a darkening line straight down the center and two brand new stretchmarks, still red and angry. “You can do that?”

She places the listening piece to my skin, making me recoil under the icy metal. She moves it around, waiting, searching. After what feels like forever, her eyes brighten, and although she doesn’t say anything, I know she’s found it. She holds her hand still over the listening piece and pulls the stethoscope out of her ears and hands it to me. 

I put them in my ears and I hear it. _Thump thump_ , _thump thump_ , _thump thump_. It's in there, buzzing away like a bee. “That’s really it then?” I grin. “That’s really my baby?”

Clarke smiles, rocking back on her heels. “That’s it. A healthy 130, just how we like it. Baby sounds perfect in there.”

I can’t stop listing to it. _Thump thump_. _Thump thump_. _Thump thump_. 

My cheeks burn with joy. "Do you mind if I take this?" I ask. "I know he's busy right now but I think Bellamy will want to hear this."

Clarke smiles. "Sure." I coil it up and set it to the side. Clarke digs into another box. "I think he's excited for you two to have your own space."

I sort through a box of old pill bottles, deeming which ones are still in good enough condition to be reused and which to discard. "I know I am. I'm starting to get the itch to have somewhere permanent that we won't freeze to death in."

"I think he's excited to have a door that can be locked from the inside." She matches a pair of socks. "Octavia was raving on the way home from TonDc about how glad she is he has someone else to smother."

I put a cracked glass bottle in the discard pile. "I wish he wouldn't. It drives me crazy."

Clarke averts her eyes, an amused expression dancing over her lips. "I think it's how he shows he cares."

I lower a bottle of hundred year old ceftriaxone, my forearms balanced on the lip of the cardboard box. "What's with that look?"

She clears her throat. "What look?"

"That one," I nod to her. "The one that makes you look all coy, like you know something's up. You already know it's fake. What is it?"

"Nothing," she shakes her head, turning to the side, her hair falling over her shoulder and shielding her face. She turns back and brushes the hair away, the expression wiped clean. "I guess I'm just impressed by what a good actor he is. Probably just paternal instincts kicking in. He's practically already raised Octavia, probably doesn't take much to bring it all back. He's just too used to sheltering her, and he's sheltering you and by sheltering you, sheltering his child. You'll be off the hook by the time it's born."

"Well he's better at this than I am." I empty a bottle of expired rifaximin into an empty cardboard box for disposal and toss the bottle into the keep pile. "If anyone's going to blow the cover on this whole setup, it's me."

Wrapped in a blanket under the night sky, I sit cozied up by the fire as people chatter all around me, quietly filling in my plant book. Under Clarke’s hand drawn picture of a raspberry plant, I fill in the uses for each part of the plant, my hand shaking as I write ‘induce labor’ underneath the leaves. Three months. 

“It’s finished,” a voice says, practically in my ear. The kiss on my cheek that follows tells me who it belongs to.

I hold my spot in the book with my thumb. “What’s finished?”

“Come look.” Bellamy holds out his hand.

I take his hand, finding the task of keeping up the show less arduous than it used to be. I may not be any good at it, but it's less taxing than it used to be. “You smell like sweat and it’s November. That’s saying something.”

“I know,” he laughs. “But look at this.”

In the dark, away from the fire, it’s hard to make out the exact details. But with the roof finished, it really looks like a cabin now. Like a home.

"What do you think?”

“It looks just like those little log cabins from the Earth history books,” I say, running my fingers along the rough tree bark of the outer walls. "It’s adorable. And most importantly, it’s permanent. Rain won’t leak in. It has a fireplace, so this little one will be warm." I rest my hand on my stomach. “Can we go in?”

“Only if you let me carry you across the threshold.”

“Oh, no,” I tell him. “You’re not picking all of this up.”

His hands wrapped around my legs and back, he lifts me into the air and I cling to his neck, praying he doesn’t drop us. “Watch me.”

He steps across the threshold into the little cabin, the inside illuminated with a single candle on the mantle and the small fire built inside. He puts me down just inside the door, his hand still lingering on my back. I take in the little set up. To the right is a pile of blankets, where we will sleep. Directly across from that against the left wall is a single blanket folded.

“I thought a crib would look nice there,” he explains.

“We don’t have a crib,” I remind him.

He pulls me close. “Yet.”

In the middle, against the back wall is the fireplace, made of simple stones. Our clothes are in the back-right corner of the room, folded in two slightly messy piles. It’d taken weeks to build, but the sight of something so stable released tension I didn’t realize I was carrying. “It’s perfect.”

I put my book and pencil down beside the bed and reach down to untie my boots, but it gets more difficult as the days go by. 

“I got it,” Bellamy volunteers. He unlaces my boots and places them beside my book, then without hesitating, begins to rub my swollen, aching feet.

“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him. “There’s no one here.”

He looks up at me. “There’s you.”

Sometimes the way he looks at me is so intense it’s unnerving. Where does he draw that up from? Why is the best I can manage is a smile and holding his hand, and he can pull out these expressions that look like he’s loved me for many, many years?

“I have something I think you’ll like,” I say, digging into my jacket pocket. I have to say, I didn’t get much work done today carrying it around with me. “Clarke helped me find the heartbeat today.”

His face lights up. “She did?”

“Yeah.” I put the stethoscope in my ears and copy Clarke, moving the listening piece around until I find it. _Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump_. “There.” I hand the stethoscope to him. “Listen.”

From the second he puts the earbuds in his ears I think he might cry. Seeing him almost cry makes me almost cry. This is how it’s supposed to be, joy on joy. I can almost forget we were thrown out of a spaceship two hundred and fifty miles to a radiation-soaked planet. His brown eyes reflect the firelight, tears making them glisten. Clarke had a point. We’re not really that different. Neither of us could draw the line on someone we loved. Neither of us could draw the line now, for someone we’ve never even met.


	20. Twenty

_**27 weeks 6 days December 2, 2149** _

“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to do this for three more months.” I press my hands into my sides. “My hips are killing me.”

Clarke laughs. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. You’re growing birthing hips.”

I cringe. “Please don’t call them that.”

“It’s what’s happening. You’ll just have to keep him in there a little while longer so he can keep cooking.” Clarke walks with me, graciously keeping my pace, which has significantly slowed down. “But he sounds good, so fingers crossed he’s healthy.”

"You still think boy?”

“Just a feeling,” she laughs. “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking girl.” I trail my fingers along my belly, earning a kick straight to the ribs. “I think I just want to do little red pigtails every morning. I’d love a redheaded boy too though.” 

Up ahead, I hear Miller, up in the watchtower, yelling at someone. “That wasn’t us!”

“What’s going on?”

Just then, the door breaks open, the latch broken beyond repair. Two men on horseback, Grounders, come in unannounced, another horse tied to each of theirs but without riders. “There they are,” one says, his voice low and threatening.

“Is he talking to us?” Clarke asks. One of the riders dismounts and walks quickly towards us. “I guess that answers my question.”

"Are you Morgan and Clarke?”

“Yes,” Clarke says, furrowing her brow. “Why?”

“Come with me.”

I step back. “Not until you tell us why.”

“The Commander has ordered it. The deal with Mount Weather was broken. By you.”

“By us?” Clarke asks. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we kept our deal. We took half the supplies, leaving the other half and the mountain for you when the mountain was originally promised to us. We gave you more than the original deal.”

“The mountain has fallen,” he says. “No one was inside when it happened, but there could’ve been. The mountain is in Trikru’s territory. It does not belong to you. You had no right to blow it up.”

“Blow it up?” For a moment, I begin to think Clarke may blow up. “What makes you think we did it? Azgeda’s been terrorizing everyone for as long as we’ve been here. Ever think to question them?”

“Azgeda doesn’t have the capability. You do.”

I shake my head. "No, if anything, it fell."

"It fell?" The first rider scoffs. "How do you explain the explosion we heard then?"

"When? Was it about two months ago? That's when we opened the mountain. The Commander put no restrictions on how to open it. We left it intact."

The second rider dismounts with two bundles of rope in his hands. He tosses one bundle to his friend, who quickly unravels it and begins to bind Clarke’s hands. 

“Stop!” The second rider grabs my hands and ties them too. 

“So we’re prisoners now?” Clarke asks. “You have no proof!”

“We have enough to take you in,” the first rider says, pushing Clarke to mount one of the riderless horses. “The Commander will decide what to do with you.”

I point to the horse. “I hope you don’t think I can get up there.” Before I can say another word, the two men lift me up onto the horse, securing my rope to its. “I guess I can.” I grip the horn of the saddle, suddenly feeling dizzy and off balance this high up. I turn to Clarke. “Did you do something?”

She looks angry that I would even accuse her. “Of course not.”

My eyes widen and I gesture to the horse. "Then why are we here?"

"I don't cause the world's problems, Morgan," she grumbles. "I didn't do it. You know that."

The riders lead our horses out of the gate and into the woods. I look back. The guards in the watchtowers have their guns trained on the riders. I lock eyes with one of them and shake my head. _Don’t_.

Miller lowers his gun.

Bellamy appears at the top the stairs to the guard tower, his face going from shock to fear to anger in a millisecond. He turns to head back down, and I see Miller grab his shirt and hold him back. His mouth moves but I can’t tell what he says.

I turn back to Clarke, my stomach in my feet. “Do you think one of them did it?”

“One of who?”

“One of us.”

“No.” Clarke settles her shoulders. “No, none of them are that stupid.”

I think that over. Murphy was there when Finn carried out his massacre on the Trikru village. Raven, shot, bleeding, and without the use of her legs, rigged the dropship to kill three hundred Grounders. Jasper blew up the bridge they stood on. The sheer chaos of the early days, which I once reviled in, comes flashing back at me. Each of us are criminals, after all. Are any of us beyond bringing a mountain down to prove a point?


	21. Twenty-One

_**28 weeks 2 days December 5, 2149** _

After three days of riding, we finally arrive in Polis, and I can’t believe I was complaining about my hips hurting before we left. 

Polis isn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I expected honestly, maybe a bigger version of TonDc. But this is like a small city, with row after row of buildings and shops, hundreds of people milling around the streets. In the center of it all is a tall tower, hundreds of feet high.

“The Commander is in the top floor,” one of the riders says, leading us into an elevator. I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful to see one in my entire life. I couldn’t have made it up all those stairs.

When the elevator doors open, Commander Lexa sits at her throne. Unlike when I saw her in TonDc, her face is devoid of makeup, save a bit of eyeliner, making her green eyes stand out. She looks so much younger without the warpaint on, and I begin to wonder if she’s really even older than us. 

Not realizing she has guests, she speaks to a bald man dressed in robes, her expression tight. “What do you mean the scouts didn’t find any? This is the fifth year in a row, Titus. We need _natbliedas_ coming in every year. It can’t be an occasional thing.”

“I’m sorry, Heda,” he says respectfully. “But I can’t make the scouts find something that isn’t there.”

She sighs, barely keeping her head. “Did you check the babies too or just the kids?”

He struggles, stumbling over his words in an attempt to find a suitable excuse.

Her eyes go wide and she puts a hand on her forehead. “You didn’t even check the babies.”

“It doesn’t seem right to separate a newborn from its mother.”

“I didn’t say to take them right now, did I? No, I said to find them.”

“Heda,” one of our captors interrupts. “I have brought the leaders of Skaikru to you.”

“Aleric,” she hisses, her fists clenched. “What is she doing here?”

He looks at us, confused. “This is Clarke Griffin and Morgan Blake, as requested.”

She takes a deep sigh and trains her eyes on the ceiling. “I told you to bring Clarke Griffin and _Bellamy_ Blake. I told you Morgan is his wife. I told you that to help you find him.”

Aleric looks down, realizing his mistake. “My apologies, Heda.”

“Six days’ journey for nothing. I can’t even give you a simple task,” she mutters under her breath. “Since you’re here, Morgan, I guess you’ll have to take his place. I see you’re still pregnant,” she notes. 

The baby chooses that exact moment to kick me in the bladder and I think I pee myself a little. “Unfortunately.”

“Untie them,” she orders the guard behind her. “I didn’t tell you to bring them as prisoners. I just said to bring them.”

My hands free, I rub my wrists, the skin raw and sore from rope burn.

“We have a problem,” she says frankly, her tone serious. “I want to know why Mount Weather isn’t a mountain anymore.”

“Our people haven’t been to the mountain since we carried out our half of the supplies,” Clarke tells her. “I don’t know who blew the mountain up, but it wasn’t us. The mountain might not have even blown up. We blew the doors, yes, but the mountain was intact when we got our supplies. There were cracks in the walls and ceiling though, so maybe that's what happened. Maybe it just collapsed?”

I wince. I wish she sounded more sure of herself.

“Your people blew up a bridge that had survived for hundreds of years. You burned three hundred of my warriors alive. You opened the door to a mountain that had long been sealed shut. How do you expect me to believe it was anyone else? No one else has the capability.”

Clarke looks at me, begging for help. 

I think fast, racking my brain for any sort of proof. “We’re out of hydrazine.”

“Out of what?” 

“Hydrazine. It’s the name of a chemical used for fuel. It was in the dropship, which killed your warriors. It was in wreckage from the exodus ship that crashed a few miles from our camp; we drained the tanks and used it to blow up the bridge. We used what was left in Raven’s pod to open the mountain. It’s not a controlled burn. Once it lights, we can’t stop it. It’s all gone. We’re out.”

She tilts her head. “Tell me, how do I know you didn’t save some and use it on Mount Weather? You're lucky no one was inside."

This would be an amazing time to have Raven baffle her with equations and numbers I can’t keep straight. I’d take Jasper or Murphy too; they can bullshit their way out of any situation.

The Commander nods. “You can’t.” She motions to her guards. “Lock them up.”

“Wait!” Clarke pleads. “What if I could offer you an exchange to let us go? You said it yourself, no one was injured or killed. But you’re upset, naturally, and you want payment for damages.”

“Clarke. . .” I trail. “Where is this going?”

She asks again. “Would you take it?”

The Commander regards her with caution. “What kind of exchange?”

“I have information you might find useful.”

Her patience is wearing thin. “On what?”

“I know the location of a nightblood you haven’t been able to find yet.”

I’m about three seconds from tackling her.

The Commander raises an eyebrow. “Where?”

“TonDc. The apothecary’s daughter.”

Commander Lexa shares a look with Titus. “If your information is true, I will let you leave. Until it is proven though, you will stay here, in the tower, guarded at all times. If you try anything, or your information is false, you will die here. The mountain was not yours to destroy, and _natbliedas_ are not a joke.” She motions to a guard. “Take them to a guest room and do not move from their door.”

I keep it together until the doors of the room we will stay in is shut behind us. Before she knows what hit her, my fist connects with Clarke’s jaw, making her stumble.

“Are you insane? You had no right!” I shove her, slamming her against the wardrobe. “That’s someone’s daughter! That’s not your child to give up!”

She holds her cheek, her lip tinged with blood. “I was protecting my people. My life. Your life,” she shoves her finger in my chest. “Your baby’s life.” She spits blood. “We have no way to prove it wasn’t us.”

“My life is not worth more than hers. Neither is yours, or any of our people’s.”

“Then why does it matter so much to you what happens to her?”

“She’s not disposable, Clarke! She’s a child!”

Clarke pushes past me and stands by the window, taking in the evening light. “Sometimes you have to sacrifice the few to save the many. What’s done is done.”

“I don’t believe that.”

She whips around. “I don’t really care what you believe, Morgan!” she half yells. “I am saving our people.” She turns back to the window. “Althea was never going to be able to circumvent fate, anyway.”

I don’t care. Seven months pregnant or not, she’s going to pay for it, and I’m going to be as petty about it as necessary. 

Time turns into a blur, and sometime in the next few minutes or seconds, I’m not sure, the guard posted at our door bursts into the room, dragging me off Clarke and prying her hair from my hands. He hauls me down the hall and locks me in a separate room.

I huff and brush my hair out of my face. I walk past a mirror leaned up against the wall and get a look at myself. My hair is an orange fuzzball in a barely recognizable braid. My shirt is ripped at the collar and my arms and chest are covered in scratches and red marks that’ll be bruises by morning. There’s a certain wild and deranged look in my eyes, one that makes me recoil when I realize that’s me. Is this what I looked like on that fateful December day? Is this who Miller saw emptying syringe after syringe into that boy’s sleeping body, then tore open his neck like she was mad? Who is she? Where does the rational survival brain go when fear and anger show up? 

My eyes land on my belly, looking smaller than it does from my angle up above, but prominent and round. The baby seems to jump inside, the movement so strong it’s visible in the mirror. 

I look down guiltily. “How could I forget you?” I sit down on the bed, the covers made of fine furs. I rake my fingers through my hair, pulling it out of its braid, trying to simmer down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do that anymore. I shouldn’t let myself get worked up that fast. I don’t think.” I swallow, imagining the scene that will go down in three days’ time in TonDc. Despite having never seen my own child’s face, I’ve seen parental love in Althea’s, I’ve heard about it in Alex Murphy’s death, I’ve seen it reflected in a child’s when Clarke opened the first aid supplies, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if it were my child being taken, this world would burn before I let that happen.

“I’ll fix this, okay?” I promise. “I’ll do it right, too. You’ll grow up seeing your mom as a role model. The way you should.” 

I struggle to kick off my shoes and jeans, and once I can finally breathe again, I crawl in the exquisite bed, burying myself in the furs. I settle one of the pillows - a real feather pillow - between my knees and tuck a second one underneath my stomach. I relax into the soft mattress and pillows, but somehow something still doesn’t feel right. Warm air blew on me from vents in the ceiling, carrying the scent of wood smoke. I wasn’t cold. I had infinite comfort items and was as comfortable as I was going to get. I wasn’t physically uncomfortable. Then it dawns on me. I haven’t slept somewhere alone in three months. I’ve shared a bed with someone for the last five weeks. It wasn’t the bed or the room or the temperature that was wrong. I was lonely.

Under the covers, I slide my hand along my stomach. “Your dad, too.”


	22. Twenty-Two

_**29 weeks 1 day December 11, 2149** _

Six days. 

A hundred and forty-four hours wondering if I’ll be able to resist tearing Clarke’s throat out the next time I see her. 

Long enough for the bruise on Clarke’s cheek to form and fade.

Six days spent at the window, waiting to see familiar black curls wrapped up in a blanket to protect her from the December air. Six days waiting for the child who’s just been ripped from her mother’s arms. 

Will she know where she is? Will she know she will live out the rest of her days in this city, learning to fight, to lead, learning how to kill her friends when the time comes? Will she know that she will never be a child again?

Six days.

As the sunset turned the sky golden on the sixth day, two brown horses came riding into the city, the foremost rider holding a bundle of blankets. As they turned toward the stables, I saw her face. Iris. They found her.

I get up from my chair, unable to look any longer. 


	23. Twenty-Three

_**29 weeks 2 days December 12, 2149** _

It’s not until sunrise of the next day that they come for us, to tell us what we already know, Iris is a nightblood, and we can go home. They thank Clarke for her help.

They fit us out with two horses and enough food for the three-day trip. 

I’m sick of this city. But I don’t want to go home.


	24. Twenty-Four

_**29 weeks 5 days December 15, 2149** _

Snow falls in a flurry as I try to tie my horse to a tree branch, making it difficult to see. My fingers are frozen, making it nearly impossible to feel the rope. Eventually I can’t stand being outside any longer, so I just hope he won’t run off and leave me to walk home in this weather. 

TonDc looks different than the last time I was here. No one mingles in the town square. No one mans the shops. If it weren’t for the smoke rising from the homes, I’d think this was a ghost town.

The apothecary shop was empty, unsurprisingly. Iris’s toys were still left in her playpen. Herbs and cups of water, now frozen, were left on the table. Glass bottles and tins of medicine were shattered or cracked open on the floor. The imprint of boots outside bigger than mine indicate a struggle I can only imagine.

A few minutes’ walk from the shop is the tiny, two room house that was once the happy home of a mother and baby. No smoke rises from the chimney and the curtains are drawn shut.

I push on the door of the house, finding it unlocked. “Althea?”

From somewhere in the back room, a weak voice asks one simple question. “Why?”

I pull off my hat and gloves and place them on the kitchen table next to the highchair. 

Curled up in bed, a handsewn doll in her grasp, I find her.

I shake my head. “It wasn’t me.”

She sniffs. “Then who was it?”

She’ll kill her if I tell her.

“It doesn’t matter.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “Because I’m going to get her back.”

Althea’s lip trembles. “You can’t.”

“I will storm the temple with guns blazing if I have to.”

“Great,” she says. “Then I’ll lose my daughter and my friend.”

“No, you’re going to have your daughter again and you’re going to think your friend hung the moon, because she’s got an idea.”

“Oh yeah?” Althea wipes her eyes. “And what’s this plan that won’t get you killed?”

“I just told you. We storm the temple.”

“And I just told you, that’s a stupid plan. You’ve got someone else to think about. You can’t be putting yourself in danger like that.”

“Last I checked, he or she is still tucked up safe in there,” I say. “We can save her, and it won’t be dangerous, because we’re going to poison the flamekeepers.”

“Heda will have your ‘heda’ for that. No thanks.”

“I didn’t say we kill them. We just have to give them enough of something to knock them out, then we go find Iris and get out of there. They’ll wake up on their own none the wiser.”

She furrows her brow. “None the wiser? They’ll be missing a toddler.”

“Exactly. They’ll think she wandered off on her own.”

“And if they think someone took her?”

“Then,” I think. “Just be prepared to go somewhere else.”

She nods. “I know someone. He may not be happy to see me, but I know he won’t turn us away.”

“Good.” I nod. “We’ll get to work tomorrow.”

“No,” Althea sits straight up in bed. “I can’t wait that long.”

I nod to the window, a tiny sliver between the curtains revealing the conditions outside. “It’s practically a blizzard out there. We need the specialized equipment from Mount Weather and,” I pause. “And they need to know I’m alive. I have to go home.”

Althea jumps out of bed and rushes around the room, gathering things in a bag and pulling on a winter coat. “Then we’ll go to Arkadia.” She pulls on a thick pair of socks and laces up a pair of boots. “I need to stop by the shop to get a few things that might help us.”

“It’s freezing out and that horse hasn’t had a break for days.”

She shoulders her bag and throws my hat and gloves at me. “So take him to the livery. Brik will take care of him for you.”

I raise my eyebrows. “And we walk home in this? It’s at least four hours in clear weather.”

Althea stops, her hand on the door. “I’m not wasting another second.”

I pull on my hat and sigh. “Let’s go then.”  
  


A four-hour trip turned into seven in the blizzard. 

Althea had never made the trip to Arkadia and relied on me to find the way home, the last three hours in the dark. The snow made the world eerily silent. Most of the sky was covered in clouds, but occasionally the full moon broke through, illuminating the forest in an unnerving kind of light, pale and bright. It wasn’t the kind of darkness it should be; it was like the moon turned into a second, colder, lesser sun.

I was bone tired from riding all day and frozen from the air and wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere warm and sleep for days. Nevertheless, Althea persisted with passion I’d never seen before. 

How could I blame her? She’d lost the most precious thing of all.

Once I could see the glow of the fire from camp, tension fell from my shoulders. 

“Harper!” I call up to the watchtower. “Open the doors for us, will you?”

She jumps up and leans over the edge. “Morgan? Is that you?”

I push back my hood. “What do you think?”

She races out of the tower and the doors open before she crushes me in a bear hug, forcing the baby up in my ribs. “I thought something happened to you. Clarke came home hours ago.”

I cough. “I can’t breathe, Harper.”

“Oh, right.” She lets me go. “What happened out there? Did you get separated?”

“I split off from her to get Althea,” I gesture to her. “While we were in Polis her daughter was taken, but we have a plan to get her back.”

“Well count me in,” Harper says. “What’s the plan?”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m afraid it’s going to take more skill in medicine than what you have. But we will need back up, and I’ll make sure you’re with us.”

In the center of camp, warming her hands over the fire, is a certain blonde who was asking for it. When Althea catches sight of her, she marches straight for her. 

"Wait!" I call out, trying to catch up with her.

It's no use. Before Clarke has time to react, Althea swings at her, punching her in the same place I did. “You asshole.”

Clarke stumbles and trips backward over a log, landing flat on her back in the snow. She blinks, trying to focus on who just hit her. “Althea?”

“You fucking asshole!” she screams. “That was my baby!”

Clarke scoops up some snow and holds it to her cheek. “I know. I deserved that.”

I can almost see the steam coming out of her ears. “If you deserve it then why did you do it?”

Clarke looks up at her. “Mount Weather collapsed.” She gets to her feet. “Lexa thinks we did it, but we didn’t.” She motions to Raven’s work tent. “I even checked. The rest of the hydrazine is still there, all accounted for. But I had no proof it wasn’t us, and she was going to torture us or kill us or something. You know your people.”

Althea stands there open mouthed. “My people? That’s funny, I don’t remember my people giving my child up to die in the arena!”

“Your people made the Flame cult!” Clarke yells back. “My people have never made kids fight to the death in the name of a stupid AI.”

Althea lunges at Clarke again and I grab her arm. “That’s enough. I’ve already given her hell about it too. Come on. Let’s go inside and get some sleep. Fighting all night won’t help you come up with a formula. A fresh mind will.”

She pulls back and wrestles free from my grasp, straightening her clothes. “Fine.”

I lead her over to the cabin I share with Bellamy; there’s no way I’m letting her out of my sight with such a rage. Light glows from underneath the door, showing he’s still awake. I crack open the door. He sits on the floor in front of the fire, a book open on his lap. I look closer and realize it’s not just any book – it’s my pharma book. What’s he doing reading about medicinal plants so late at night?

“Honey, I’m home,” I joke. 

He whips his head around. “Morgan?”

Unsure if I’m supposed to keep up the façade in front of Althea or not, I hold open my arms. “It’s me.”

He scrambles up from the floor and hugs me, picking me up off the ground. “I had no idea what happened to you,” he whispers in my ear. “One second you were there and then the next you were tied to a horse being carried off into the distance. Miller made me stay – he knew you were innocent and thought launching a rescue mission might put you in danger.” He tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there.”

“No, no,” I shake my head. “I’m fine. See? I’m okay. Miller was right, that would’ve made it worse.”

“What happened to you? Clarke said you just split up from her and then you didn’t come home for hours. I was so worried.”

“I went to go see her,” I say, turning to Althea, who stands in the doorway. “Iris was taken, but I know a way to get her back. It’ll just take some time to figure out, so she’s going to stay here and help me.”

“Of course,” Bellamy says. “Let me go get you a blanket.”

He disappears for the dropship, where we keep our extra supplies, and Althea turns to me. “That’s really not necessary. I can sleep with the others.” She looks around the cabin. “I didn’t know you two had one to yourselves.”

“Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to room with a baby.” I walk over to the fire and pick up my pharma book, trying to make some space for her. There’s a pencil stuck between two of the pages. I flip it open, and realize the last page has new inscriptions. _Augustus. Julia. Ophelia. Diana_. _Adrian. Cyrus._ He was writing baby names. None of them I particularly like, but something about the thought of him dreaming about what to name our baby makes me smile. 

The corners of Althea’s mouth twitches. “Secret love notes in there?”

“No,” I shake my head, still smiling. “Baby names.”

“I think it’s hard to pick a name until you see them," she muses. "If I had a girl, I wanted to name her Carrie, but when I saw her face for the first time, it just didn’t fit. Her dad picked out her name and I liked it, so she’s an Iris instead.”

“I haven’t really even thought of baby names yet,” I say, putting the book away on the mantle. “I think I’m just afraid of making plans that far ahead. Anything could happen.”

Bellamy comes back. “Here’s a blanket for you. Put it down wherever you like.”

“Thanks.” Althea takes the blanket and spreads it out in the far left corner, half disappearing from sight, the fireplace blocking the view from this angle.

“I bet you’re tired,” Bellamy says quietly so as not to disturb her, taking my coat from me and laying it in the corner. He sits down at the foot of our bed and unlaces my shoes for me without asking. 

“You don’t have to do all of that,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “I should’ve done so much more.”

“No,” I say, my hand coming up to touch the side of his face without making the conscious effort to do so. He looks up at me. “You did exactly what you needed to.”

He gives me a small smile, his eyes turning back to his task. “Let’s go to bed.”

He puts the boots to the side and I crawl in bed under the scratchy orange blankets and lay my head on a rolled up blanket instead of a pillow. It certainly didn’t compare to the bed in Polis. One of my legs hooked over his knee, his hand laying on top of mine in the dark, body heat radiating from him – it was better.


	25. Twenty-Five

**_32 weeks 3 days January 3, 2150_ **

Althea leans her head in her hands. “It’s been nineteen days.”

“We’re getting there,” I promise her. I swat at Bellamy’s hands. “Hey, too tight.”

He releases the fabric. “I think we’re beyond the point of hiding it. And listen, I said my mom was a seamstress, not me. I’m just guessing here.”

“Then just do your best. We won’t even make it in if we don’t look the part.”

He lifts the dress up over my head, careful not to pull apart the pins. 

“Shame you weren’t stuck in there with Mom’s sewing for sixteen years,” Octavia says, pulling the needle through Althea’s servant dress. I tried to remember what they looked like from my time in Polis, but recreating it when I had no pictures or drawings was harder than I anticipated. Bellamy managed to recruit Octavia to help him in the sewing work, but she was far more interested in the rescue mission. “You might’ve learned a thing or two.”

“Did she teach you how to conceal an eight-month pregnant belly?” he asks, struggling to thread the needle in the low light. “Didn’t think so.”

Octavia smirks. “I believe that would be your own problem, big brother.”

“Hey now,” I say, looking up from the plant book. “It’s mine too. Don’t completely blame your brother on this one.”

“But he is half of the problem,” she teases.

“Didn’t seem like much of a problem at the time,” I smirk.

“Woah. Violation,” Murphy says, stepping into the pharma tent. “I don’t know what kind of violation, but no one needs to hear the details of how you got in this shmook.” He takes a seat on the bed we’d moved in the tent. “Ready for the next trial, Baby Mommas.”

I stop, the cup of sour smelling purple liquid in my hand. “Murphy.”

“Get it?” he asks. “Because you both have kids. Well, a kid and a half.”

“ _Murphy_.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he throws his hands up, stretching out on the bed, crossing his feet. “Shut up already. I know, I know.”

“Okay.” I kneel beside him. “Trial number fourteen. Same formula as before. Dosage is thirty milliliters per eight ounces of water.” I hand the cup to Murphy, who downs it all in one go. “Time begins now.”

Murphy relaxes into the pillow, heaving a long sigh. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven. . .” He makes it to sixty-three before his words jumble together too much to understand, and then they stop all together. 

Miller pops his head in the tent. “Raven wanted me to let you know that the rover is fully charged and – ”. He stops, staring at Murphy lying on the bed unconscious, my fingers wrapped around his wrist to feel his pulse. 

I hold his gaze. “If you breathe one word of what you’re wanting to say right now, Miller, so help me.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just here to deliver the message that Raven fixed the solar panels and the rover is ready to go when you are.” He ducks out of the tent, quick to get out.

I run a hand over my face. Three hundred and sixty eight days since it happened and he’s still avoiding me as if the internal punishment wasn’t enough.

“Hey,” Bellamy says softly. “Remember what I said.”

I force a smile. “I know.”

Murphy starts to stir under my touch, blinking. “How was that one?”

Clarke looks at her watch. “Twelve minutes.”

I look to Althea. “Can we do twelve minutes?”

She rubs her forehead, looking over our calculations and chart of the previous attempts. She throws down her pencil. “I’m tired of waiting. I will make twelve minutes be enough. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

“I’m coming with you,” Bellamy says.

“And me,” Octavia volunteers. “So is Lincoln.”

Clarke turns to us, her eyes flitting at Althea, who has managed to go this entire time without speaking to her. “And me.”

“I think I’ve done my share,” Murphy mumbles, laying his arm across his forehead. 

“That's quite a lot of backup,” I hesitate. "Won't it be suspicious with so many people going in at once?"

“We won't go in at all unless you need us. It’s a sanctuary where they train the best fighters on Earth,” Octavia points out, cutting a loose thread with a knife. “I wouldn’t doubt that most of those kids are as good as the flamekeepers. You might need all of us.”

“It’s only three of us for each of you,” Bellamy says, squinting, trying to tie a knot. “If we have to split up, three is not too many.”

“Wait, who’s the sixth? I already know about Harper.”

“Miller,” Clarke says gently. “He’s the best guard we have. We need him.”

I shake my head. Sure, why not another opportunity to berate me? “Of course he is.” 

“I can’t see anything through this damn tent,” Octavia says, stabbing her needle into the dress to hold her place. “I’m done.”

“Give it to me,” I tell her. “Surely I can figure out how to sew two pieces of fabric together.”

“Come on.” Bellamy takes my hand, helping me stand. “We’ll finish it by firelight.”

“I still can’t believe it’s already January,” I say between bites of bread. After spending the day in the tent, I was in no mood to sit out in the cold during dinner just for the company. Althea was anxious and couldn’t be still, so she set off in search of a place she could be alone, even if it meant braving the cold. “It’s hard to imagine we’ll have a baby next month. It doesn’t seem real.”

Bellamy smiles as his fingers move back and forth, above and underneath the cloth, pulling the needle through in a mesmerizing pattern. He’d gracefully taken over my project too, as my stitches were so bad they were going to give us away immediately. “I think I’m so terrified I don’t feel scared anymore. I think I’ve hit my peak of fear.”

I lean back on my hands, watching the fire burst and crackle. “I don’t even feel like the same person I was back in the summer.” I look at him. He was entirely different now – much calmer, much more secure in his role. “You don’t seem like the same person either.”

“You’re so much more than the girl who almost cried at me when I told her we couldn’t take care of a baby down here.”

“You’re so much more than the boy who ran off for three weeks when I told him I’m keeping the baby no matter what.” I don’t regret my decision, but I have to admit, that was reckless. “We’ve both grown up a lot.”

He puts down the sewing and turns to me. “You’re bolder. More confident,” he muses. “I can hardly see the girl in there who so poorly flirted her way into my tent.”

“Five and a half years in a lab. Not much time for flirting." I tilt my head. "If I was so terrible, why’d you let me in?”

He shrugs. “I found it endearing." 

“You were also trying to assert your male dominance or whatever,” I laugh. “Bunch of peacocks.”

“I was not,” he says defensively.

“Yes, you were. All the boys were, but you worst of all. Do you want to know how many guys I slept with down here?” I hold up a finger. “One.”

He brushes invisible dust off his shoulders. “That good, huh?”

“I – I enjoyed it,” I stammer. “But I decided I’d rather wait until I loved the guy. I think I’d like it more that way. So I didn't do it again.”

He nods, picking up the sewing again. “I hope you find him, then. You deserve it.”


	26. Twenty-Six

_**33 weeks 0 days January 7, 2150** _

“What are we supposed to do with the horses?”

I never wished for Iris to get taken by the flamekeepers, but if she was going to be, I wish she’d been taken in the summer. Or early fall, maybe. Not in January, when changing in the bushes outside of Polis risked frostbite to parts of you that should never be exposed in this kind of weather. “Tie them up in that tree line. Loosely. Just enough to keep them there but not so tight that we’re slowed down.” I pull our radio out of my bag. “Clarke and Bellamy?”

“Ready.”

“Harper and Miller?”

“In position.”

“Lincoln and Octavia?”

“On your command, Little Red.”

I roll my eyes. “We’re dressed and heading in now.”

“Copy that.”

I motion Althea forward, adjusting her arm position to copy that of the server girls I watched from the tower while I was stuck in Polis with Clarke. Once we’re through the gates of the city, my stomach begins to hurt. I’ve never been good at pretend.

“Where’s the entrance to the temple?” Althea whispers.

“It’s just down here,” I point. “But I saw all the server girls go in here, so I’m thinking this must be the part of the temple where the flamekeepers - and hopefully the novitiates - live. Back straight,” I remind her.

“I could say the same thing to you. You’re practically waddling.”

“Someone’s messing with my center of balance; I’m doing the best I can.”

The entrance I saw the servers go into turns out to be the kitchen. Vegetables are half cut on the counter; bottles of wine are sat on a high shelf. Hung up on the wall is a list of meal times. The next one is 5:00 pm – Hour of Silence, with another meal at 6:00 pm – Novitiates. 

“They must eat dinner separately,” I note.

“You try to get through one meal with kids as young as they take them. You’ll want an hour of silence to eat by yourself too.” Althea nods to the vegetables. “I think we should finish cutting them.”

There are two shelves of plates, bowls, and cups stacked neatly by the sink. “Do you think we should set the table?”

Althea picks up a nearby knife and begins to cut into the pile of peeled potatoes. “I think so. Do you know how many flamekeepers there are?”

I look down at the plate in my hand. “No. I think I’ll just set the entire table and we’ll just have to hope that isn’t out of the norm.” I look around. “Where are the other servers?”

A girl, maybe two or three years older than me, about Althea’s age, walks into the kitchen. “We’re short staffed tonight,” she says. “Most of them are sick. I wasn’t expecting anyone else.”

Althea stops cutting for a moment, watching the girl. “We’re new. Temporary replacements.”

The girl’s eyes go to my stomach. “I can see that. They really couldn’t find anyone else, could they? Pregnant girls aren’t servers here.”

Though she wears the same outfit as us, something seems off about her. Then I see a glint of silver in her belt, the handle of the knife wrapped in twine and decorated with feathers, a single handprint carved into the side. 

I take plates down off the shelf, pretending to mind my business. “I don’t think they allow the servers to carry weapons either.”

She freezes for a half second, staring at me. “I guess we never saw each other then, did we?”

“I guess not. Where’s the dining room?”

She points to an area just out of sight from the archway of the kitchen. “To the left there.”

I smile at her. “Thanks.”

I set the table, complete with silverware and napkins, and hope it looks similar enough to how they normally eat. I’m imagining that since flamekeepers are so high up in society, they eat like high society members, and if not, they overlook any mistakes in the name of temporary hires.

When I return to the kitchen, Althea has the wine sitting on the counter. She lowers her voice to try to protect our plans from the other girl, who is clearly not a server either. “You said that each of the flamekeepers look to be about the same weight, so I’ve put all of it in the wine bottle so everyone will get the same dose.”

“Okay,” I nod. “I think you should be the one to serve it, since apparently the likes of me,” I gesture to my belly, “aren’t welcome here.”

“I will,” she promises. “Once they're all out, we go.”

“What about the other girl?”

Althea shakes her head. “I don’t think we have to worry about her. She couldn’t tell on us without telling on herself.”

I look around the room. “Where is she, anyway?”

“In the back. She’s looking for water cups.”

The sounds of footsteps are the only indication the flamekeepers have arrived. They seem to be observing the Hour of Silence as well. I hear chairs scoot as they take their seats. I look to Althea. “It’s showtime.”

Althea leaves with the wine in hand, then makes several return trips for the food. We then set up in a corner of the kitchen pretending to dry dishes so we can see the dining table.

One by one, just as predicted, they begin to drop, some of them falling face-first into their food. 

“That’s the last one,” I say. “Come on. We’ve got twelve minutes.”

We make a mad dash for the residential hall, but once we turn the corner, we stop dead in our tracks. Black blood pours from each of the twelve doors.

Althea swallows. “Go check each of them. We still have to find her.”

I look in six doors. Each room is decorated a bit differently, though sparsely. Some had drawings on the wall, or books on the nightstand, or a tiny collection of smooth rocks. Each room had a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a weapon or two or three, most of them thrown about the room, and each had the body of a child, most with a sword or spear or knife in their hand, even the ones as young as five. Blood poured out from slit throats and chest wounds and holes in their belly. None were left alive. None could’ve been saved even if they were.

After the sixth room, I’m on the verge of vomiting. Althea still dodges in and out of doors, unfazed, or perhaps blinded from the horror and feeling only relief that it isn’t Iris. She reaches the last door and gasps. “She’s in here!”

Inside the room is a crib instead of a bed, carved with different images. A biohazard symbol. A handprint. Three wavy arrows contained within a circle. I didn’t get a chance to look at the rest. Bloody black handprints had grasped the crib railing, reaching in. Someone stood inside the room, her robes bloody, a knife decorated with twine and feathers in her raised hand. 

“You,” I gasp.

Althea pulls the radio out of her robes and says one word. “Now.”

“It was not me,” she says firmly. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you saw. I wouldn’t still be standing here if it was me.”

The only thing holding Althea back is the knife in the girl’s hand and the close proximity to her child. Otherwise, I don’t think the girl stood a chance, armed or not. “How do I know you weren’t in here to finish her off?” 

Clarke, Bellamy, Harper, Miller, Lincoln, and Octavia come running down the hall, appearing from nowhere. Guns are drawn, save Lincoln and Octavia, who brandish menacing swords.

“What’s going on?” Bellamy demands. 

“I did not kill them,” the girl repeats.

“Kill them?” Clarke turns and looks at the hall, at the half-moons of black seeping under the door. “Oh god.”

“Is she in there?” Lincoln asks. “Is Iris okay?”

“Other than scared, she looks okay,” I tell him.

He pushes me out of the way to stand in front of the door, staring down the woman, who hasn’t dared move. “You have three seconds to get away from my daughter, or they start firing. Drop the knife.”

His what?

“Drop it!”

The knife clatters to the floor. “Listen to me. I didn’t kill the _natbliedas_. I killed the person who did.”

“Yeah?” Lincoln asks. “And who was that?”

“The novitiate from my clan. Ontari.” The girl holds her hands up in defense. "I came in here to save her."

“Why would she do that?” Clarke asks.

The girl takes a steady breath, her eyes darting from gun to gun to sword, the eight of us blocking the exit. “Queen Nia wants an Azgeda Commander. Ontari was too eager to do whatever she wants.”

Althea looks at her warily, clearly not buying it. "Why don’t you have the scarring like Azgeda?”

“She’s a spy.” Octavia, though looking a bit off kilter after finding out they’re here to save her boyfriend’s mystery child, still holds her sword up, her hand unwavering. “I’ve ran into her before." She says her name like it's poison. " _Echo_." 

“ _Octavia_ ,” she retaliates. 

Lincoln holds the tip of his sword to Echo’s throat, drawing blood. “Get Iris,” he orders Althea. “Octavia. Harper. Get them out of here. I’ll be right behind you. One of you take my place.” 

Althea darts in the room, grabs her daughter, and darts out, holding her to her chest for dear life. Octavia takes the lead and Harper follows behind them, watching their backs.

“I’ve got it,” Miller says, pressing the barrel of his gun into Echo's chest.

I turn to Clarke and Bellamy. “Go.” 

“Absolutely not,” Bellamy says, holding his ground. “We’re not leaving you.”

“I don’t know if she killed the nightblood children or not. But I do know she’s going to the Commander for it, and someone has to be the informant.”

“I’ll do it,” he volunteers.

“You will not,” I tell him. “I’ve already broken in. You have no reason to be here. You need to go.”

“Morgan –”

“I need you on the outside, okay Bellamy?” I look up at him. “I’ll need help getting out of this. You too, Clarke.”

“But Miller –”

“No, I’ve got it,” he says firmly, not taking his eyes off Echo. “You two are too valuable. We'll be fine.”

Bellamy stammers. "No."

“I’ve got it, Bellamy,” Miller says. “Nothing will happen to them. Not while I’m living.”

I hear footsteps coming from the kitchen. Our twelve minutes are up.

“Now!” I demand.

“Come on,” Clarke says, pulling at his arm. “We’ll get them out. But we need to go.”

He finally tears away, retreating down the hall, watching his steps to avoid the blood.

I know its only moments until they find us, until they see the massacre in the hallway. I try to run through every way to explain this in my head.

“Hey,” Miller says softly. “We got this.”

  
All three of us on our knees in front of the Commander, I prayed we wouldn’t all be immediately executed.

The Commander’s head is in her hand. I get the feeling having the world on your shoulders at nineteen was more than she bargained for. It’s weird, knowing how the Flame is chosen, knowing that this young woman had to have killed her friends. Somewhere inside her must be a veracity unmatched by anyone, but right now a cloud of weight hangs over her, one more decision to make, three – well, four – lives at stake. “I’m going to have to verify this with Queen Nia, you understand that, right? This is a very serious accusation.”

“It’s a very serious crime,” Echo replies. “Or if you don’t believe me, you can run down there and take a quick peek at what Ontari did. Be careful though, you might slip in all the blood.”

“Do not mock me, Echo kom Azgeda.” The Commander turns her attention to the flamekeepers behind us. “Where was Ontari?”

They each look at each other. “She was supposed to be observing the Hour of Silence.”

She raises her eyebrows. “‘Supposed to be’?”

“We’re not exactly sure,” one of them says. “Someone poisoned our food. Or maybe the wine. We’re not really sure, but we woke up to the sound of shouting, and went running.”

“So that’s why two of you have food on your faces. You were eating during the Hour of Silence. How interesting,” she muses under thinly veiled rage. “It’s almost as though if you ate with the novitiates like you’re supposed to, this would never have happened.”

“I think that’s hardly relevant now, Heda –”

“I think Heda will decide what’s relevant and what’s not.” She stands, her red velvet shoulder cape falling straight behind her. She walks up to Echo. “How do I know you didn’t poison them?” 

I breathe out a shaky breath, my eyes trained on the ceiling. “Echo didn’t poison them. I don’t know what she did or didn’t do, but I do know that.” I meet her eyes. “I did.”

Miller stands up. “I helped her.”

“Sit down, no you didn’t,” Lexa orders him. “You’re not a very good liar.”

“I was the equivalent of an apothecary on the Ark,” I tell her. “I made the medicine. I make the medicine down here, too.” I bite my lip. “After Iris – the nightblood child Clarke told you about – was taken, I was so upset by the idea of a child being taken from her mother –,” I look down at my own stomach, now heavy and round, the movements of the unseen child felt only by me, “– I couldn’t imagine what that mother was going through. I had to save her. I couldn’t let her be ripped away and never seen again.”

“We have no choice now,” Lexa says. “She is the only nightblood left. The Flame will automatically go to her when I die. You’ve ensured that.”

I square my shoulders, trying to focus on any positive in the situation. “Then I’ve spared her the anguish of having to murder other children.” 

“Where is she?”

I shake my head. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. I just know she’s gone.”

She turns to Miller. “And you?”

“I don’t know either.”

She turns to Echo. “You?”

“No.”

“Well,” she says simply, returning to her throne. “Then I suppose the three of you will see the prison until one of you will talk. Guards, see them out.”


	27. Twenty-Seven

_**36 weeks 1 day January 29, 2150** _

“I’m just here to do your checkup, Morgan.”

The woman, Niylah, came by each week, and she’d come by three times already. She was here yesterday. That is, unless I’ve lost track of time.

“Weren’t you here yesterday?”

She moves in closer, pretending to examine my stomach, her fingers feeling along the top and sides. “I was, and you’re both still as healthy as you were then. Any more contractions?”

I pull down my shirt. “A few, but nothing regular. Why are you here again?”

She looks over her shoulder, taking my pulse. “They’re coming to get you and the boy today. They’ll be here by sundown.”

“What?” I perk up. “Who?”

“Clarke. Bellamy. Harper. Your friends. Your people.”

“How do you know their names?”

“I’ve met Clarke,” she says simply, checking for swelling in my ankles. “She asked for my help. You’re going to go into early labor this evening, and they’re going to be forced to transfer you to the medical ward.”

“And Miller?”

She smiles. “He’ll be your support. You’ll be hysterical and inconsolable and begging for him. They’ll have to take him too.”

The door to the cellblock opens. Niylah quickly rises to her feet. “Sundown.” She says something to the guard who’s just walked in, probably about my impending early labor, then disappears behind the door.

“Early labor, huh?” Miller laughs from the cell beside of me. I can see him through the bars. He’s slumped against the cell wall, playing with a pebble from his shoe. “Which do you bet came up with that? Bellamy or Clarke?”

“I’m sure it was a team effort.”

He throws the pebble. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready to get out of here.”

“I can’t stop thinking about Iris,” I say. “How could you do that to such a little one? Two and a half years old, and you pick her up from her house like she’s a parcel to retrieve. She doesn't belong to them, yet they act like she does just because of the color of her blood.”

Miller looks at the ground. “How could you kill all those kids? Ten of them, one right after the other.”

“This world is insane. I don’t know how people have lived like this for so long.” I look up at the ceiling. “I wish I would’ve died up there. It would’ve been so easy. I wake up one morning, and by the afternoon I’m lying in a comfortable chair. One quick pinch, and the world fades into darkness. I wish I would’ve died on the Ark when I turned eighteen. It would’ve been so easy.”

Miller is silent for a while and at first, I take it to mean he agrees with me, but then he says: “I’m glad you didn’t.”

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting that. “After all this time, you’re glad I’m not dead?”

“I wasn’t at first,” he says. “For a long time, I thought you were some kind of cruel, heartless monster. I still think some parts of you are.”

I hang my head. “Gee, thanks.”

“But not all of you is. Most of you is still the girl I grew up with. You are incredibly selfless and brave. You’re so talented at what you do and most of the time, I realize, you use it for good.”

I smile.

“I’m sorry I spent so long berating you for what you did. I have ugly sides too. I’m an asshole that holds grudges and you make rash decisions. We both suck as human beings. Hell, we’re criminals!” He laughs, and for a moment I see the sparkle in his eyes return, a sparkle I haven’t seen in over a year. His expression turns serious again. “I don’t forgive you for going as far as you did, but I do appreciate the reason why. The kind of love it must take, to go that far for someone. . .” He shakes his head. "I feel so stupid not to have seen that."

I reach one finger through the bar and touch his hand. “Of course I love you, Miller. I always have. You’re my best friend." I look at him, and in my mind's eye I see him all through the years, growing and changing alongside me, but the sneaky look in his eye before he did something he wasn't supposed to never changed. "How could I not love someone who stole socks for me during the power reduction when we were ten? Don’t act like all your thefts are impulse – I know some are love motivated too.”

He smiles, remembering. “I thought you were cold because they lowered the temperature to conserve power, but no, you put them on your hands and used them as puppets. They would’ve had your skin if they knew you were using the solar lights for that.”

“What they didn’t know didn’t hurt them,” I grin. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed talking to you.”

He nods. “Me too.”

The door to the jail rattles and a guard walks up to our cells, breaking us out of the first fun moment we’ve had in weeks. “Rise for the Commander.”

We stand, me with the help of the bars of the cell, and wait for the final verdict. Do we live or do we die?

She rounds the corner to stand in front of our cells. She has her warpaint on, which can’t be a good sign. 

“Nathan. Morgan,” she regards, folding her hands behind her back. “Wherever Iris is, she hasn’t been found. I’ll give you one final opportunity to be helpful.”

“We really don’t know where she is,” Miller insists. 

“Very well,” she says. “Echo won’t give it up either, and I think three weeks is long enough. The people are getting antsy out there. Her mother or father, or whoever took her, must love her fiercely to risk being found again, because the consequences for taking the only living heir to the Flame will be harsh. Something else you should know,” she looks between us, “a flamekeeper was found dead the night of the sanctuary raid.” She looks at me, her green eyes burning holes in my skin. “From your drug.”

“That can’t be right.” I shake my head. “No, no. I did the calculations. It couldn’t have killed him.”

She walks up closer to the bars. “He had been fasting, whether that makes a difference or not.”

My heart sinks. He’d lost weight. My calculations were off. I killed him. _Again. You did it again._

She almost looks genuinely sad. “You know the law. Blood must have blood.”

“No.” Miller steps forward, clinging to the bars of his cell. “You can’t.”

“I have to. If death has no cost, life has no worth.”

“But she’s two lives,” he begs. “She only took one. If you kill her, then you’ve taken an extra life. An innocent one.”

“ _She_ took the life. She has to pay the price.”

“Take mine,” he offers. 

“What?” I grab the cell bars separate us. “No.”

He shakes his head. “No. Do it,” he insists. “She deserves to see her baby. I'm volunteering.”

“Miller,” I choke out. “Don’t kill him,” I beg. “I’m guilty of two lives. One was on the Ark. It counts. Take me. I can’t raise a baby in this world, anyway.”

The Commander is silent for what feels like ages, thinking. “You only took one life on Earth.”

I sink down to the ground, sobbing.

Miller looks at me as his hands are bound behind his back, a halfhearted smile on his face. “'No greater friend than this', right?”  


  
His body was still warm when it was loaded in the rover.

“You can tell Althea, wherever she is, that she doesn’t have to hide. I made a deal with Lexa that Iris can stay with her until she's ten or she's needed as heir, whichever comes first.” I slide into the back of the rover next to Miller, his body wrapped up in white cloth. It’s stained red in a few places –some of the blood in the cuts haven’t dried yet.

Bellamy sits down next to me. “She’s with Lincoln in his cave. I’ll let her know.” He slides an arm around my shoulders, attempting to be comforting, but I shake him off and scoot to the far edge of the rover.

No amount of back rubs and nice words are going to bring Miller back. “I don’t want to be touched right now.”

“I owe him everything,” Bellamy says, looking down at the body in front of us. “He saved my everything.”

“Stop. I’m not your everything and you know it. My implant just failed. That’s all this is.”

“I do care about you, Morgan. You know that.”

“You care about your baby.”

Bellamy shakes his head, sighing. “I can see that you’re hurting, so I’m going to leave you alone. But know that I do genuinely care for you. I –.” He swallows. “I really do.”


	28. Twenty-Eight

_**36 weeks 4 days February 1, 2150**  
_

The frozen ground made it hard to dig the grave. 

I sit beside him, cross-legged, my knife moving back and forth across the stone. I wanted to go to the river and pick out the stone myself, but Bellamy put his foot down, and we settled on picking the stone together and he carried it up for me.

_NATHAN MILLER_

My fingers trace the newly formed indentions, feeling the way the lines intersect and curve, making sure it’s all the same depth. 

It was an awful job to carve gravestones for people you barely knew. It was worse to carve one your lifelong friend. It was worst of all to leave them unmarked, where years from now, no one would know who’s who, if they even knew there were graves there at all. 

I turn over the stone and begin to carve the back.

“Please come inside,” a voice says behind me.

I don’t look up. “I’m busy, Bellamy.”

“You can carve inside.”

A piece of stone chips away. “He shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“Are you going to stay out here forever? Catching pneumonia and god knows what else?” He throws a blanket over my shoulders. “Are you coming in or not? I’m about two minutes away from carrying you in.”

I brush away the carving dust. “I’ll come in when I’m done.”

“You better hurry.”

My fingers are going numb by the time I’m finished.

_NO GREATER FRIEND THAN THIS_

_HE WHO GIVES HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND_

I place the stone gently over the grave. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Bellamy standing in the doorway of our cabin, arms crossed, his face drawn tight with worry. _  
_

I look down at him, tucked in warm underneath the earth, his fight finished, his soul stilled. How can it be over? How can eighteen years' worth of life come to an end so quickly?

Why did we spend our last year together in hatred and anger? Why did we only reconcile moments before it all came to an end?

I reach down, my frozen fingers barely able to feel the dirt that covers him, trying to connect with him, trying to touch him one last time. "May we meet again."


	29. Twenty-Nine

_**37 weeks 4 days February 8, 2150** _

Voices mix in the snow outside the cabin. I think it might be late afternoon, judging by the dying light, but who knows? Something is always dying. 

“You’re going to have to make her drink if nothing else. She’s going to go into preterm labor if she doesn’t.”

“I’ve tried. She’s just been in bed for a week. I can barely get her to even speak to me.”

When will they stop? When is enough, enough? When will they just leave me be, and let me miss Miller in my own way, let my heart ache for him and all the lost time on its own?

The walls of the cabin may be thick, but they aren’t sound proof. I pull the covers over my head. I don’t want to listen to them anymore.


	30. Thirty

_**38 weeks 1 day February 12, 2150** _

A pharma cabin was on the list for next spring’s project. For now, it was still a tent with drying plants bumping your head as you walked through.

I twist and scrape the pestle against the mortar, the sound of crunching leaves turning into white noise. Bellamy practically dragged me out of the cabin and into the pharma tent, begging me to just sit in there if nothing else, just for an hour. I didn’t do anything for the first forty-five minutes, but then I noticed some leaves ready to be crushed. The simple task didn’t take too much energy, and it gave me a sense of purpose in a world I suddenly felt so lost in.

It was well into the afternoon when a familiar face popped her head into the tent. “Althea.” 

“Thought I’d stop by and drop off some of Iris’s old baby clothes. Maybe even help you sort them if you want. Not long now.”

It was hard to see Iris balanced on her hip, knowing all I’d lost to put her there again. I nod. “About two weeks.”

“Listen.” She steps forward. “I am so, so sorry about Miller.” She pulls me into a hug. “And I am so, so grateful for what you did for us.”

I lean my head into her shoulder. “I wish it was more. I wish she could stay with you forever.”

“No, you did everything you could. You did more than I thought was possible.” She pulls apart the hug. “Don’t cry. She was never going to stay with me forever anyway, black blood or not. Come on.” She rubs my back. “Let’s go get ready for your little one.”

When we get to the cabin, Murphy and Bellamy have the door wide open as they struggle to carry in a crib. 

I scrunch my brow. “Where did this come from?”

“Daddy Boy made it while you were in Polis,” Murphy huffs as they straighten the crib to be parallel to the wall.

“Don’t call me that,” Bellamy says. He looks sheepish. “I had to keep busy. Every second I wasn’t trying to plan a jail break I was working on this. And I also made these.” 

Wrapped in cloth to keep it clean, Bellamy hands me a bundle of fabric. When I open it, it turns out to be a stack of diapers and a tiny orange sleeper outfit made from the blankets found in the supply depot, the buttons mismatched in color and size. I run my fingers over the buttons, over the tiny even stitches in black thread. How can an entire person fit in something so small?

“It might not even fit. I didn’t have anything to go by. I just tried to remember how big Octavia was as a newborn and that was seventeen years ago.”

“I think it’ll fit,” Althea says, leaning over my shoulder to see. “Especially if you have a bigger baby.”

I place it in the crib. “It’ll be the first outfit.”

Althea puts her bags down on the floor beside the bed. “One bag is full of baby clothes in all the sizes Iris has grown out of, and the second bag has baskets for us to sort them into.”

I sit on the floor beside her, reaching into the bag of clothes. I pull out a white onesie, a faded and cracked picture of a dog printed on it. The next is a yellow t-shirt in a bigger size with the picture of a rainbow on it and the words ‘You are my sunshine’. The fabric is thin and stained in some places. “These are adorable.”

Althea lays out the baskets in front of us. “I don’t know when they were made. Before Praimfaya, I assume. Many, many babies have gone through them.”

I start folding by size. “It still doesn’t feel real yet.”

“It won’t feel real until you hold them. And it probably won’t feel real for a few days after. But once that sleep deprivation kicks in,” she laughs. “It’ll feel very real then.”

Iris tries to be helpful by pulling all the clothes out of the bag, then stealing the ones we’ve sorted for her pile. When she gets bored, she piles them all together again and throws them up in the air, laughing with such joy as they rain down around her it’s impossible to be upset.

Althea laughs with her. “And when they make every task take twice as long, it feels real then too.”

I just smile and refold the ones within my reach. “If this question is too personal or you don’t want to answer it, then don’t.”

“But what happened with Lincoln?” Althea fills in the question for me. “We had differing opinions about how to deal with Iris’s nightblood. I didn’t think it would be possible to hide her all her life. I didn’t think it was right either. And we weren’t the only ones to know she had nightblood,” she tells me. “The midwife knew when she cut the cord. Lincoln only wanted to protect her, and I understand that and I appreciate that, but I didn’t like the way he handled it. ‘A dead man tells no tales,’ they say. I didn’t want her around someone like that.” 

I put a stack of clothes in a basket. “But you let her around me, and you know what I’ve done.”

“You were deeply sorry about what you’d done. He wasn’t.” She shakes the wrinkles out of a tiny pair of pants. “He did it because he loved her, and I understand that. I’ve never doubted that he loves her as much as I do. I thought he had a choice, but he didn’t feel like he did. He thought he was doing what was necessary to save her, and I see now that he was. Sort of, anyway. It bought more time. We’re still not on great terms, but we’re speaking again, and I suppose that’s a start.”

“I did what I did because I thought it was the only way to save Miller, but I just ended up getting us both locked up and now he’s dead anyway.”

“You did what you did because you loved him. He did what he did because he loved you.”

“Yeah.” I wipe my eyes. “I just wish we hadn’t spent so long hating each other in the in between.”

Harper opens the door slowly. “Hey guys?” 

“Come in,” I tell her. “Don’t stand there letting the heat out.”

She shuts the door behind her. “We found something while we were redistributing Miller’s supplies. I think he wanted this to be given to you.” 

She holds out a wooden mobile, the sun, moon, and planets lightly swinging from their string. I take it from her, watching space sway beneath my fingertips. That’s when I notice what’s carved in the ring that holds them all together. ‘Baby Blake’, right there, in his handwriting.

He’d forgiven me long before Polis.


	31. Thirty-One

_**40 weeks 0 days February 25, 2150** _

I lay with my arm outstretched over my forehead. “I am so over being pregnant.”

Clarke pulls the stethoscope out of her ears. “I hate to say it, but baby still sounds nice and cozy in there.” She feels along my stomach. “He or she is head down though, and I think you’ve dropped.” She pulls my shirt down. “Hopefully not too much longer.”

“But I’ve been having contractions on and off all day. Doesn’t that mean it’ll be coming soon?”

“Not necessarily,” Clarke frowns. “It could go on for another week or two. Unless they’re regular or your water breaks or something, you’re probably not in real labor.”

I groan.

“I can brew some red raspberry leaf tea for you,” Althea offers, bouncing Iris on her knee. I wanted her there for the birth, and she’d been staying in Lincoln’s cave for the past few weeks since it was nearby and spending her days in Arkadia helping me prepare, both physically and mentally. “First time moms tend to go overdue, and many say it helps.”

“Did you?”

“No,” she laughs. “I had Iris nine days early.”

“Lucky bitch,” I mumble.

“Come on.” She helps me stand. “There’s some in the pharma tent.”

I sip the tea, watching the cloud swirl in front of me, a mix of steam and the fog of my breath in the cold air. “This is disgusting.”

“Not a fan of tea?”

I grimace. “Not a fan of this tea, anyway. But if it gets this baby out, then bottoms up.”

“You know what will definitely put you in labor?” She covers Iris’s ears with her hands and mouths the word “Sex.”

“Sex?”

She grins. “Give it a try. If it doesn’t work then the worst thing that happens is you’ve had some fun before you have a little monster sucking on your boobies and everything is swollen beyond recognition.”

I roll my eyes and put my head in my hands, laughing at how ridiculous the suggestion is. "So the second time I have sex is to get the baby out that happened the first time I had sex.” 

She looks confused. “I thought you were with Bellamy.”

I shake my head. “That relationship isn’t real. It was his idea to give these people some hope and so we could play the doomed lovers bit to Lexa to barter for more hunting grounds. If she ever asks, he’s my husband.”

“Oh, he went big then,” Althea laughs. “It's just, he seems so protective and caring and well, loving. I spent three weeks in the same cabin with you two and I genuinely thought he loved you. I never questioned it.”

I take another sip. “He’s always been better at this acting thing than me.”

Althea tilts her head. “I don’t think he’s acting.”

I wave her off. “It’s just the baby. He doesn’t really feel that way. I mean yeah, he likes me, but we’re just two friends who happen to be having a baby.”

“What about you?”

I almost choke on my tea. “What?”

“Do you care about him?”

I shrug. “Sure, I do. He’s the father of my child, why wouldn’t I?”

“No, I mean, do you _love_ him? More than a friend, more than for the sake of the baby?”

I shift, the stool I’m perched on suddenly hurting my back. “I don’t think so.”

“Think?” A sneaky grin blooms on her face. “Think or know?”

I stare at the tea in my cup, letting the steam warm my face. “Know. We’re just good friends, that’s all.”

“Alright,” she nods. “How committed are you to getting labor started?”

All I've been able to think about for the last two weeks is having my body be my own again. As much as I love feeling the baby kicks, I would also love to be able to breathe and go more than half an hour without having to pee. “Very.”

She nods to the door of the tent. “So go have sex with Bellamy.”

“What?”

“I’m sure he cares about you enough _as a friend_ to want to help relieve you of your suffering.” 

I shake my head. “I can’t just ask him that.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t ask your friends that.”

“Will you have sex with me?” Althea deadpans.

“No.”

“See?” she shrugs. “You can ask your friends that. Go ask him. Prove me wrong.”

“Fine." I put my cup down. “I will. But when he says no, I can prove to you that we’re just friends.”

I find him in the newly built dining hall with Monty and Harper, helping to put dishes away on the new shelves. 

I tap him on the shoulder. “I need your help with something.”

He puts the plates up and turns to me. “With what?”

“I want you to get this baby out of me. You put it here, you need to get it out.”

He laughs, confused. “Listen, I would help you, but I don’t think I can.”

“Yes, you can." I force myself to be still and maintain eye contact. The words sound so ridiculous to even think. "You can have sex with me.”

He blinks slowly, clearly not expecting that. “Um, sure.”

I wasn’t expecting that. “Sure?”

“Yeah,” he says, glancing back at Monty and Harper who are not so subtly giving each other the side eye as they unpack crates. He places a hand on my back, walking me out. “Maybe not where they make the food though.”

Outside of the dining hall I ask him, “You really mean that?”

“I mean it if you do,” he says. “Did you not?”

“No,” I say, straightening out my shoulders. “I mean it.”

He holds open the door of our cabin. “After you then.”

I hear a wolf whistle from behind me and turn around to see Althea standing outside the pharma tent, Iris clinging to her hip, waving. “Good luck, sweetie!” she yells.

Bellamy shuts the door behind me. “Good luck?”

“It was her idea. She said sometimes it gets things moving.”

“Right, well.” He tosses his jacket aside. “Should I take your jacket then?”

“Yeah, sure.” I slide my arms out of it and he takes it from me, folding it neatly and placing it by the bed. Then he pulls off his shoes and socks and helps me with mine.

He sits on the bed beside of me, pausing, unsure.

“I think you should kiss me now,” I offer.

Without saying anything he leans in and kisses me softly, sweetly, and then again, still gently. It feels strange to kiss him. In all this time of playing this game, I’ve never kissed him, not since that summer night. He’s different now. Back then he was all confidence, never wavering on anything, but now his hand trembles as it finds its way up my back and into my hair, pulling it free from its braid.

I find myself rather enjoying the softer side of him. The world was cruel and violent and I was not innocent in it, I had been cruel and violent too. So had he. But in this room we were neither, only soft, warm things in the darkness of closed eyes. I could kiss him all day if it meant I never had to return to the world.

My fingers find their way to the edge of his shirt and pull it up and over his head, barely breaking away. He does the same to me and pulls me close, skin to skin.

This wasn’t like sex the first time. We took our time. He wasn’t a stranger to me. I wasn’t one of the countless, nameless girls to go through his tent. We were familiar to each other, and though this wasn’t the first time our bodies entwined, it felt entirely new. I wasn’t having sex; I was having sex _with Bellamy_.

He pulls off his jeans and I pull off mine, no longer bothering to fold clothes, instead letting them lay where they land. His hands run along my back, reaching up to unhook my bra, his fingers struggling with the clasp. 

“Here,” I offer, “let me.” I unhook it and toss it to the side, letting it land somewhere in the sea of discarded clothes.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you naked,” he says.

“No, it’s not,” I laugh. “Remember how we got into this mess?”

“Yes, it is.” His fingertips run along the sides of my breasts, down the sides of what’s left of my waist, into the curve of my back. “It’s the first time I’ve actually stopped to look at you.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised by the serious tone. 

He plants a kiss on the top of my stomach. “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.” Then one at the top of my breast. "Or selfless." Then one in my collarbone. "Or kind." Then one behind my ear. “You're absolutely lovely.”

I wrap my arms around his neck. “Let’s not get carried away in the rush of hormones, shall we?”

“I mean it,” he says, kissing along my jaw and back to my mouth. “I’ve thought it for a long time. This is just the first time I’ve been brave enough to tell you.” He smiles against my lips. "It's also the first time I didn't think you would rip my head off if I said it."

I pull back and look up at him. “You have?”

He looks at me, solemnly, his eyes saying more than his words ever could. “I have.”

In a way, it was the first time I’d seen him too. The first time I’d stopped and looked at him. Long dark eyelashes cast shadows on his face with the light from the shutters. His hair fell in waves in some places and curls in others. When the light hit his eyes just right, you could see a pattern them, one that looked just like the telescope pictures of the Pillars of Creation. He was a work of art himself. Beyond that he was loyal to a fault, caring and generous. I never doubted that he loved his family - he loved Octavia beyond words and put in so much effort for someone so small, someone he'd never even met, someone who wasn't even earth side yet. I began to wonder, thinking back over time, did he think of me as his family too?

My voice is the only sound in the weighted silence, breaking ground on a thought I hadn't even considered. “I wish I’d looked at you before now.”

“You’re looking now,” he says.

“Yes.” I kiss the skin where his jawbone meets his ear. “I am.”

“Do you think that helped?”

The light coming through the slight crack in the door made it clear it was much later now, and the air had cooled off. I yawn, not realizing I’d dozed off. Bellamy rakes his fingers through the tangles in my hair, whether to fix them or for his own amusement, I’m not sure.

Cuddled up against his chest under the covers, as close as I can get these days anyway, I look up at him, at the tiny bruise I left on the skin underneath his ear. “I don’t feel any different.”

He puts his hand on my stomach. “No difference here,” he moves his hand to my chest, just over my heart, which has decided to race, “or none here?”

I hold his hand over my stomach, which the baby decides to kick, making him smile. “None here.” I move his hand back up to my heart. “But as for here. . . I think I care about you a lot more than I thought I did.”


	32. Thirty-Two

_**40 weeks 3 days February 28, 2150** _

“Are you okay?”

When the tension releases, I huff in frustration. “I’m fine. It’s just these Braxton-Hicks. All the pain of real contractions and none of the progress. Sometimes I wonder if this baby is ever going to come out.” I lay a hand on the top of my stomach, which gets kicked. "Yeah, like I forgot you're in there."

He rubs my back in sympathy. “Are you sure those are just practice contractions? They look pretty intense.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. They’re still irregular.” 

"I'm not so sure," Althea says, tearing up pieces of venison for Iris so it cools faster. "I know that look. I think you're getting close."

"I better be getting close," I grumble, taking a sip of water. "I've got a list of complaints as long as my arm." I start counting them off on my fingers. "I've got heartburn, my ribs feel like someone's been living in them, I get these random shoots of pain in my crotch, I'm leaking milk already, I haven't slept more than an hour at a time in weeks -"

"Oh you'll never sleep the same ever again," Althea says, digging into her dinner. "Even when they're old enough to sleep through the night, you'll still wake up wondering if they're okay."

Clarke sits down next to us with her plate. She and Althea had come to a begrudging peace, mostly just because I wanted them both in the room with me and don't need them fighting while I'm trying to push out a baby. "It's been theorized that the loss of sleep during late pregnancy is to prepare your body for light sleep during the newborn phase. If you were to just knock out for eight hours straight and your baby needs to be fed every three, they'd be beyond hungry by the time you woke up. It's instinctual."

Althea picks up Iris's dropped fork. "And here I was thinking it was because there's a seven pound person inside you doing flips the moment you lay down."

"Sometimes I can feel it too," Bellamy grins. "I don't mind not sleeping then."

"That's a load of bullshit," I roll my eyes. "You don't sleep, huh? I am willing to place a bet that when the time comes, if it's at night, I won't be able to wake you up."

"I'll wake up," he says defensively.

"It won't be without a lot of effort, I know that."

"Are you willing to put money it?"

I roll my eyes. "We don't have any money down here."

"Are you willing to put hypothetical money on it then?"

I hold out my hand for him to shake. "It's a bet."


	33. Thirty-Three

_**40 weeks 4 days March 1, 2150 4:09 am** _

“Wake up.” I shove Bellamy again. He stops snoring for a moment but doesn’t open his eyes. “Wake up!”

“What?” he groans, rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Get up. It’s baby day. I’m sure of it.”


	34. Thirty-Four

_**40 weeks 5 days March 2, 2150 6:11 AM** _

The air is frigid for the occasion. Harper stokes the fire, trying to keep the cabin warm. My eyes flicker to the orange blankets folded in the corner, and I pray they’ll be enough to get us through to warm weather. 

I feel her body tense against mine as another wave rolls in. Her arms are wrapped around my neck, her body draped across my shoulders and chest. Clarke puts pressure on her lower back and Althea rotates through cold cloths for the base of her neck despite the air’s temperature to fight the nausea. Her body shakes with pain against mine. Her fingernails dig into my skin, surely drawing blood, but I do my best not to react.

“Morgan,” Clarke scolds firmly, tapping her back to get her attention. “You need to breathe. Baby needs oxygen. Deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

She moans instead, too overwhelmed for words.

“It’s okay,” I offer, rubbing her back, but I’m terrified for her and the baby. When I first met her, she was unremarkable, but after these past few months we’ve grown closer, and now I fear for her life as much as the baby’s. “You’re okay.” I take deep breaths, encouraging her to do the same. “You’re okay.”

She lets out a long sigh and inhales deeply. 

“That’s it,” Althea encourages, rubbing the cloth along her forehead. “You’re doing it.”

We’ve been at this since 4 AM and it’s very late into the night or very early in the next morning now, I’m not sure, but the sun set hours ago. She’s exhausted and in pain and there’s nothing I can do but be there for her. I brush red curly wisps out of her eyes, damp with sweat, whispering words of encouragement in her ear in the hope it makes a difference. 

Morgan rolls over, her back against my chest now, her head resting in my shoulder. Her chest heaves with relief in the brief moments of peace, her heart pounding so hard I can feel it. "I'm so tired."

“You’re doing so good,” I whisper. “I’m so proud of you.”

I get a weak moan in response and then a sharp intake of air, her fingers coiling into the blankets. Her eyes go wide. “Clarke, check me.”

Clarke turns around, drying her hands after washing them in the basin in the corner. “What’s wrong?”

“I just felt something slide.”

Harper gives Morgan a funny look. “Slide? Did the baby just slide out and we all missed it?”

“I don’t –.” Her response is cut off by another contraction, but the noise she makes is different, lower, louder.

Clarke checks her and looks up victorious. “She’s crowning. Finally decided you're in a hurry after all, huh, little one?” She looks back at Harper. “Get the clean blankets ready.” She looks back up at Morgan and I. “You’re about to meet your baby.”

Harper stands ready with one of those orange blankets found in the supply depot folded open across her arms. Althea helps hold Morgan’s legs and I let her brace herself against my arms as her grunts of effort and cries of pain fills the air, the sound threating to tear my heart in two. Her moments of peace are short lived now.

“Almost there, almost there!” Clarke encourages. 

“Your baby has a lot of hair,” Harper comments, the excitement of meeting new life filling her voice too.

“What color?” Morgan asks, taking a breath between pushes. The question is ridiculous given the much bigger task at hand, and I can’t help but stifle a laugh at the baby’s hair color being her main concern.

“Dark brown,” Harper laughs. “Just like Bellamy’s.”

“Damn you,” Morgan mumbles. 

“Big push,” Clarke urges. 

The animalistic, guttural noises she makes will be something I’ll never forget, but I won’t forget the sound of my baby’s first cry either.

“He’s here!” Althea smiles, her eyes glistening, no doubt remembering the moment her daughter was born.

“He?” Morgan’s voice shakes, her hands reaching out instinctively to hold her baby.

“It’s definitely a boy.” Clarke lifts him up, placing him on Morgan’s stomach, on the home he just vacated. Her fingers wrap around him, her cheeks wet with tears. “Take off her shirt,” Clarke instructs. “We need to do skin to skin to keep him warm.”

I help her take her arms out of her shirt without letting him go, helping to hold him against her, pulling the shirt up over her head and tossing it to the side. I think of how very different my intentions were taking off her clothes nine months ago. But now, touching my son’s skin for the very first time, feeling the softness of her body against mine, and I can’t imagine touching either of them ever again without the purest and gentlest of intentions. Clarke helps her settle the baby on her chest. Althea goes behind and wipes the baby off, making him look significantly less messy and much cuter. Harper is last, covering the baby in a clean blanket, then grabbing another to cover Morgan from the chest down. 

My heart slams against my chest as I reach out and touch his cheek, in awe of the miracle of human life. We have seen nothing but death since we arrived, but now, looking into the eyes of my newborn son, I see a different future for us, suddenly filled with the drive to do better not only as a leader, but as a father. I silently vow to be there for him until my dying breath. He’ll have a different life than us, I swear it. 

“Date of birth: March 2nd, 2150. 6:58 AM,” Clarke announces.

Morgan looks up at me, her eyes green and strong, glistening with tears, and leans her head into my neck, either out of tiredness or affection – I’m not sure – but she briefly closes her eyes and says, “Bellamy, I just had a baby,” as though I left her side at some point in the last 26 hours and might’ve missed it.

I laugh, kissing the side of her forehead. “I know, I’m so proud of you. You did so good.”

“Any names?” Harper asks.

Morgan looks up at me, cradling the baby’s head softly, smoothing his hair. “Here comes the mythology.”

“Okay, unfair,” I protest, wrapping my fingers around hers that support the baby. 

“You were thinking Augustus, weren’t you?” she asks. 

I purse my lips, that’s exactly what I was thinking. 

“NO.”

“Fine,” I concede. “What about Apollo?” She gives me a look of distaste. “Hear me out. Apollo is a strong name for our strong little man, it’s a call back to our time in space because the United States once had a whole series of space missions called Apollo and look outside – he was born right at sunrise.”

“Those were moon missions, though,” she counters. “We lived in space stations.”

“I’m not calling my son Skylab, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

Morgan looks out at the slit of sky visible through the crack in the door. “I do like the sun aspect,” she muses.

I grin. “Apollo Blake?”

She nods, turning back to the baby on her chest. “Apollo Blake,” she agrees.

Apollo was the name of the first time man set foot in space. How fitting for it to be his first venture back home.

Clarke nods to the door. “Go make your announcement, Papa. I’m sure everyone’s waiting to hear.”

I stand up carefully, my hands shaking from adrenaline. I open the door to see the entire camp awake and aimlessly milling around the courtyard, all turning to face me when I step out. 

“Tell me it’s a girl,” Murphy says, whittling away at something by the fire. “I’ve got a lot invested in this.”

I shake my head, a grin spreading out over my face. “It’s a boy. Apollo Blake. 6:58 AM. Roughly,” I gesture with my hands at his size. “I don’t know. Good size baby.”

Half of the camp cheers and the other half groans in defeat.

I furrow my brow. “Did you all make bets on my baby?”

Raven turns around a large wooden board with everyone’s guesses of gender, date, and time. “Would you be mad if we did?”

Murphy stands up, brushing away wood shavings. “Did you really expect anything else?”

The gate clatters open, turning heads. It’s Octavia and Lincoln, carrying bundles of something. “Did she have the baby?” she asks excitedly. “I heard cheering and you look pale.”

“You’re an aunt,” I confirm. Octavia squeals and launches herself into my arms. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

“Him? It’s a boy?” she says in disbelief. “Damn it.”

“You too?”

Lincoln looks at her, amused. “I told you. Boys are carried lower.”

I let them into the cabin and Octavia immediately hurries over to Morgan and baby Apollo, sleeping soundly as he listens to the same heartbeat he’s heard for the past nine months. I suddenly feel a twinge of jealously as I realize she will have a bond with him I can never have. Morgan pulls the blankets back from Apollo’s face, a proud smile stretching across her cheeks. Octavia squeals, her fingers gently skimming the top of his head, unfurling dark curls as her fingers pass by. "He looks just like you, Bell."

“Do you want to hold him?” Morgan asks. 

Octavia looking like she’s about to burst with excitement. “Can I?”

“Of course,” Morgan says. “Open your shirt – he needs to be skin to skin to keep his temperature up and then we’ll cover him with a blanket.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe he’s finally here.” Her fingers shake with glee as she removes her outer layers. Harper helps transfer the baby from Morgan to Octavia, who is absolutely beaming at the baby in her shirt like a kangaroo. Clarke checks on Morgan, speaking softly with Althea. Lincoln stands by the entrance with me, unsure of what to do and not wanting to cross boundaries. 

“Lincoln,” Octavia presses. 

“What?” he asks.

She looks down at the baby and back to Lincoln. “Lincoln,” she says more insistently.

“It looks like you’ve caught baby fever, Octavia. It’s highly contagious among the women of TonDc. I had hoped you were immune.”

“Come on,” she whines. “Get over here. Look at him. This is what our baby could look like. Tell me you’d hate to see this.” He doesn’t meet her eyes, looking everywhere but. “That’s what I thought.”

“Actually, our baby would be much darker.”

Octavia runs her finger along Apollo’s cheek. “He thinks he’s good at distracting, huh?”

Sitting there, a baby nuzzled to her chest, it was a sight I never knew I needed to see. It was something I never dared let myself imagine. Before we were dropped on Earth, I always knew at best, she would only live to see eighteen. I never imagined what she might look like as a mother. Or an aunt.

“Octavia?” Clarke scrunches up her face, looking at something in a bowl. “Take the baby outside.”

“What?” I ask. “No, he’s not even half an hour old. He needs to stay in here, where it’s warm.”

Clarke tosses a fur and a blanket at me without looking. “Wrap him up and take him outside to meet everyone.” 

“Why?” Morgan asks. “I don’t want him to go.”

My eyes land on Morgan, who suddenly looks much worse than she did just a few minutes ago. She looks pale and clammy, the circles under her eyes darker than before. Her lips have gone from luscious pink to pale purple. “Clarke, what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t look at me, only at Octavia, with a fierceness in her eyes I’ve never seen before. “OUT.”

Octavia scrambles up and Lincoln covers Apollo with the fur and helps her outside. I hear oohs and ahs as the rest of the camp sees Apollo for the first time. In contrast to the joy outside, Morgan looks positively sick. My stomach sinks as Clarke pulls the blanket away from Morgan. She’s soaked in blood.

I swallow. “Clarke.”

“Postpartum hemorrhage from a retained placenta.” Clarke takes a shaky breath and bites her lip, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to do.” She gestures to the bowl. “Most of it came out, but it’s not whole, and I have no tools to get the rest out.”

Harper looks stricken. “What if you kinda,” she gestures with her hands, “push it out? Can you do that?”

“Like massage?” Clarke thinks it over. “Move.” She switches places with Harper at Morgan’s side. “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt, but if I don’t do this –”

Morgan shakes her head. “Do it.” Clarke puts pressure on Morgan’s stomach in something I can only describe as a rolling motion. Morgan grabs my hand in a death grip, gasping. She squeaks out a “Fuck you, Clarke.”

Clarke looks at Harper. “Anything?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

Clarke shuffles Harper out of the way.

A weak voice says my name. “Bellamy.”

I turn my attention to Morgan, who’s head is flopped back on a rolled-up blanket. I hold her cold hand in mine and press it against my lips. “I’m here.”

“I’ve got it!” Clarke holds up a bloody piece of something and my stomach rolls. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep it together. “It fits. That’s all of it. You can open your eyes now, Bellamy.”  
She wipes her hands on a towel. “The bleeding is slowing, but I don’t have a way for transfusion and she’s already lost so much.” She turns to Morgan. “I need the coagulant you made. Where is it?”

Morgan eyes are closed and her hand goes limp. “Morgan?” I shake her shoulder. “Morgan!”

Althea gets to her feet. "I can -"

“No," Clarke orders. "I might need you here." She turns to me. "I’m going to stay right here with her, okay?” Clarke says, her voice changing into her commanding doctor tone. “But you need to go find whoever she worked with and have them get the coagulant, now.”

I try to remember who she worked with in pharma, but my head is muddled with the chaos of the room. _Think, Bellamy. Her life depends on it._

Suddenly the face clicks in my mind. Murphy.

I stumble out the door, frantically searching the camp. A group has formed, everyone trying to get a look at the baby. The world seems to spin. I pull back someone’s shoulder. “Where’s Murphy?” If they answer, I don’t hear them. I turn to the next person I see. “Murphy? Where is he?”

A voice from somewhere in the crowd is my saving grace. “He’s up there.”

I push through the crowd, not bothering to apologize as I step on toes and elbow others. Raven holds Apollo, cooing and making faces, and Murphy stands over her shoulder with his hands in his pockets, his usual smirk being reduced to a small, genuine smile. “Murphy.”

He turns. “What?” I stumble up to him, the words lost in the panic. “Bellamy, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Medicine,” I choke out. “For bleeding. Where is it?”

Raven’s face falls. “Is she okay?”

“I –,” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” Murphy says. “She keeps the book in the pharma tent. We’ll find it.”

It’s like a blink. One moment I’m standing in the middle of the crowd and the next I’m in the pharma tent as Murphy frantically searches through shelves and boxes for something.

“The book.” Murphy shoves a box away. “Where is it?”

“How did we get in here?”

Murphy pauses for a moment, mouth half open. He stands up. “Is Althea still here?”

“Yeah,” I scrunch my eyebrows together. “I think so.”

“Okay,” Murphy guides me out of the cabin. “Go be with Morgan. I’ll go get Althea and she can help me find it.”

“No,” I say. “I need to find that medicine.”

“No, Bellamy, you don’t even know what it looks like.” Murphy marches me out of the pharma tent and opens the door of our cabin. “Right now, you’ll be more helpful if you’re with her.” He winces at the sight of her, at the mess of blood and fluid on the blankets. “Althea. Help me find that coagulant. I can’t find her book.”

“It’s yarrow,” Althea says. “I’m coming. I’ll help you find it.”

She leaves with Murphy, and suddenly I have tunnel vision. The rest of the room is a blur, save the girl lying on the bed, blood soaking her thighs, her eyelids veiny, her lips so pale I can hardly tell the difference between them and her skin.

“No,” I stumble over to the bed. I pick up her hand and it’s cold, far colder than it should be. My throat tightens. “No. No.” I crawl on the bed next to her, cradling her head in my arms. “No. You can’t go. You can’t.” Tears fall from my eyes, wetting her lifeless cheeks. My voice cracks. “I love you.”

The door opens and someone must come in because another voice adds to the din of background noise. “I have it.”

“How much do we give her?”

“Based on how much she’s bleeding, I’d give her all that’s in this bottle.”

“Okay. I’ll pour it in this cup to make it easier for her to drink.”

“I’ll get the baby. Breastfeeding will trigger contractions again. That should help the bleeding too, and it might bring her around.”

“Morgan.” Someone puts her hand over her arm and shakes her. 

I clamp down on the wrist that touched her. “Don’t.”

“Bellamy. Bellamy,” the voice repeats. “Look at me.”

I look up, blinking, trying to make my eyes focus. Blonde hair registers with me first, and then I realize who it is. Clarke.

“She needs to drink this, okay? It’ll help her.” The words slosh around in my head. “She’s not gone yet, Bellamy, but you have to let us help her.”

“Okay,” I say, my voice so small I barely recognize it.

“Help hold her up,” Clarke says, holding the cup up to her lips. “There you go.”

Althea comes in with a pile of blankets and furs in her arms. She tosses a few of them aside and as the layers come off, I realize my son is wrapped up in the middle of them. “Let’s try having her lay on her side.”

Harper and Clarke help her on her side so that she faces me. Clarke pulls the blanket away from her chest and Althea helps Apollo into the right position so he can latch.

“Put your hand here.” Althea’s hands guide mine to the back of Apollo’s head. “Hold him there.”

“Will this work?”

Althea nods hopefully. “Those after birth contractions are a bitch. If anything will bring her around, it’s those. I was convinced I was having a second baby when Iris started nursing.”

A weak “ow” proves she’s right.

Everyone in the room heaves a sigh of relief.

“I feel terrible,” Morgan croaks out, laying an arm across her forehead. “Why am I still having contractions? I thought I was supposed to be done with those.”

Althea sits down at the edge of her bed and holds her hand. “I hate to break this to you, but you’re going to get those pains still for another two or three days.”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I did not sign up for this.”

“Sorry, friend. It won’t last forever, I promise.”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, Morgan,” Clarke says gently. “That doesn’t help how you’re feeling right now. I want you to drink as much as you can to help replace the lost volume and rest as much as you can. I’m going to check on you a lot today to make sure you’re doing okay.”

Morgan gives her a weak mock salute. "Aye-aye, Doc."


	35. Thirty-Five

_**14 hours old March 2, 2149** _

I exhale, watching my breath turn to fog in the cold air. The sun set about two hours ago, revealing a clear night’s sky. After some searching, I find the Ark, looking no different than a star but moving rapidly across the sky, powered by the thrusters and the orbit of Earth. Up there, contained in that giant hunk of metal, is my entire life. My old life. 

My new life lies snuggled with his mother in her bed, in _our_ bed. My new life has only been here for fourteen hours. It is completely contained within four walls, protected from the aggression of the outside world. In there, there are no criminals, no murderers (attempted or otherwise), no outcasts. There is only love and peace. A family lives in there, and I within it.

It still doesn’t seem real. 

Monty sits down beside me on the log. “How’s she doing? And the baby?”

“Morgan’s feeling a little better,” I say, tossing a stick into the fire. “Apollo’s been perfect the entire time.” I shake my head. “It feels so weird for this concept I knew was coming to finally have a name.”

Monty smiles. “And you?”

“Unbelievably happy and scared for what comes next. Right now, I just can’t get over his little face and his tiny hands and how he looks laying against her chest with his little cheek squished and his mouth open, like he’s in pure bliss. It’s just,” I struggle for the words. “It’s everything.”

“I hope I get that one day,” he says, his eyes following Harper across the fire. He turns back to me. “I have something for you. It’s in the dining hall. Harper found it in storage and thought of you.”

"What is it?"

He smiles. “Come on. You’ll see.”

Inside the dining hall, he turns on the solar lights with a flip of the switch. Sitting on the counter is a cobalt blue and white dinner plate, loaded with wild boar, two rolls, and a baked potato. Beside it is a matching teapot and two teacups, the steam rising from the pot indicating tea already brewed.

My mouth hangs open in disbelief. “You found this? Where?”

“It must’ve come from Mount Weather,” Monty shrugs. “I don’t know who brought it back, but we thought it might be a way to celebrate your special day.”

I run my finger along the gold rim of the plate. “This is perfect. She'll love it.”

I have to admit, balancing a heaping plate of food, two teacups, and a teapot full of scalding tea across camp was harder than I thought it would be. Monty offered to help me carry it, but pride for my new family told him no. _Surely I can provide this one thing for them_ , I thought. Part of me wishes I’d just said yes.

When I finally manage to get the door open, it’s with the help of Althea, who had been sitting with Morgan while I took a moment to myself outside. 

“Woah!” She grabs the plate just as it’s about to slide to the floor. “Didn’t anyone offer to help you?”

“They offered but I thought I could do it,” I say, sitting the teapot and cups down beside the bed. Then I notice the giant metal tub sitting in the middle of the room. “What’s that?”

“She asked for a shower to, and I quote, ‘scrub all the sweat and blood and amniotic fluid off of me before I rot’, but Clarke told her no, given how dizzy she gets when she stands, so we compromised on a bath. We filled it up with water and boiled half of it, but it was too hot, and she fell asleep again while we waited for it to cool down.” She sticks her hand in the water, testing the temperature. “It feels fine now.”

“Thanks for all your help today, Althea,” I tell her. “She needed you today. So did I.” I smile at Morgan’s sleeping figure, her fingers wrapped around Apollo. “But I think I’ve got it from here.”

She smiles, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Happy birthday, _Nontu_.”

After she leaves, I crouch down beside Morgan and brush back her hair. “Hey.”

She yawns, rubbing her eyes. “Hey.”

I nod over my shoulder. “I think your bath is ready.”

“Oh yeah. I think I fell asleep.” She looks around. “Where’s Althea?”

“I sent her home,” I tell her. “She’s been up all night too and she has her own little one to see to. Besides, I think you and me can handle this.” 

She hands me the baby. “Put him in the crib. I’m dying for that bath.”

When Apollo is safely contained in his crib, I hold out my hands for her, helping her take slow, small steps to the tub, then gently pulling off her shirt and helping her out of her pants. She winces, her body swollen and sore, as she eases into the warm water.

“Twenty-six damn hours,” she says, her eyes closed, resting her back against the side of the tub. “I feel every single one of them.”

“You’ve also hemorrhaged,” I remind her, washing her hands gently with a wash cloth, working my way up. Despite being on the verge of exhaustion myself from being awake for so long, how can I deny her such a simple thing, knowing she doesn’t have the energy to do it herself? “Given everything, I think you’re doing exceptionally. But I always think you’re exceptional.”

She smiles at me tiredly. “I heard that, you know.”

I pour more soap onto the washcloth and wash her shoulders, massaging the muscles as I go. “Heard what?”

Her eyes follow me as I switch to the opposite side of the tub to wash the other side of her. “That you love me.”

The soap bubbles seep out of the washcloth as it’s squeezed in my hand. “Oh. Right. That.”

“Come here,” she says, not asking, grabbing the collar of my t-shirt and pulling me forward, my lips onto hers. The kiss tastes like salt and new baby scent clings to her skin. She pulls back, firelight casting shadows over her orangey freckles and pale eyelashes. “I love you, too.”


	36. Thirty-Six

_**4 days old March 6, 2150** _

Eventually, I have to go outside. 

It’s just past lunch and I’m starving. For the past three days, Bellamy has been bringing me my meals while I rest and recover from birth. I still don't feel myself yet - I tire easily and I'm working to get used to the feeling of an empty stomach. Apollo sleeps most of the day at this age, but not for very long at a time, constantly waking up to eat. His constant nursing has boosted my milk supply, which is good for him, but bad for me. I woke up in so much pain last night I yanked off my shirt during one of his night feedings and haven’t bothered to put it on since. 

I stand in front of three neat piles of clothing on the floor, in the place where a dresser will one day go, and flip through my stack of shirts. I pick up a black t-shirt and give it a stretch. There’s no way something that small is going over this body. My stomach rumbles. I have to wear something. I can’t go out topless.

My eyes drift to the second pile of clothes. I pick up a blue shirt with three buttons. The fabric is soft and worn. Bellamy’s.

I slip the shirt over my head and wince as it falls over my chest. I hope this evens out soon. I can’t imagine two years of this. 

I close the door to the cabin and step out into the sunshine. It’s still cold outside, so I cuddle Apollo closer, but the pressure of him against my chest triggers a now familiar feeling of pins and needles, then I feel two wet spots growing on my shirt.

I’m too tired and hungry to care at this point. I set out for the chow hall, the enticing smells of lunch drawing me in. 

“Those are impressive,” Harper comments as she portions out some meat and bread into a bowl for me. 

“They’re at least seventy percent milk,” I tell her, reaching for the bowl. “And they hurt.”

“I bet Bellamy enjoys the view,” she muses with a smirk.

“Harper,” Monty scolds as he stacks bowls. “People are trying to eat in here.”

“I’m just saying,” she says innocently.

I pour myself a cup of water. “If Bellamy so much as breathes in their direction I’m going to punch him.”

Harper gives a sly smile. “Oh, I doubt that. Hey Monty,” she calls loudly over her shoulder, “do you want to go have sex?”

I roll my eyes and take my bowl. “That’ll be enough from you, thank you very much.”

The dining room of the chow hall is made up of five long tables and benches, each sitting about twenty people. It’s mostly clear now with everyone back to work after lunch, but a few stragglers like myself still wander in. I take a seat at the first table and tear into the bread. It’s still warm. 

“Is that my shirt?” A voice above me asks.

I finish chewing my bite and take a drink. “What’s it to you? We’re married.”

Bellamy slides into the bench next to me. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

I sway gently side to side as Apollo nurses, _again_. “You’re just lucky I put a shirt on. I’ve been walking around the house all morning without one. Engorgement is no joke.”

He does a sharp intake of breath. “Yeah, I can see that.”

I sit Apollo up to burp him. “I will break your nose if you even think about it.”

“Can I burp him? It’s just – you get to do so much with him because you’re the mom and I just –”

“You don’t have to ask. He’s your baby just as much as mine.”

He reaches out for the baby and lays him across his shoulder, gently patting his back. He looks so tiny in Bellamy’s hands. It’s hard to imagine they’ll be the same size one day.

“I know I sprung him on you,” I say, nodding at Apollo, “but I’m so glad you came around. You make a good dad.”

“You just surprised me, that’s all.” Apollo burps, looking surprised himself, making us laugh. “I’m sorry for the way I acted when you told me. I should’ve been more supportive from the beginning. I was just afraid.”

“I know. I forgive you,” I say quietly, just basking in the sight of the two of them. There’s just something about a man holding a baby that just gets my heart. Maybe it’s because it’s my baby. Maybe it’s because it’s Bellamy.

“Do you feel up for a walk? You haven’t really been out of the house in a few days, and I thought it’d be a nice little first family outing.”

“I’d love that,” I tell him. “I need to stop by the house first to get a few things before we leave, though.”

After we eat, we stop by the cabin in search of warmer clothes and blankets for Apollo.

I shrug off my jacket and toss it on the bed as I go looking for something I can use as a diaper bag.

Bellamy narrows his eyes. “Is that milk?”

“Yeah,” I say, pulling on a thicker jacket to cover up the stains. “Sorry, but until this engorgement thing improves, all your shirts are going to have milk stains on them, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

“Not a big deal.” He folds two blankets and puts them in the bag. “It’ll be years before our clothes don’t have kid-related stains on them again. Comes with the territory.”

As I search through the baskets Althea helped me organize, I suddenly realize we have very different organizational styles. I can’t find anything. “Help me find a hat for him.”

He puts the baby down in the crib and helps me go through the baskets. He holds up a long stretchy piece of gray fabric. “What’s this?”

“Oh,” I say. “It’s a baby carrier. Like a wrap. You tie it around yourself and the baby stays wrapped up against your chest.”

“Do you want to try it? Can he use it when he’s still this little?”

“Well,” I lean back, “I don’t see why not.”

It takes longer than I’d like to admit to figure out the baby wrap. But eventually he’s contained in it – with a hat on, which somehow got mixed up in my laundry.

“Is he good?” I ask, slowing releasing my hands. 

Bellamy adjusts the tiny little bundle in the wrap against his chest. “Snug as a bug.”

“Good.” I slide my arms through the makeshift diaper bag. “Let’s go.”

Just as we set foot outside the gate, my eyes immediately go to the four neat rows of stones, each with a name, grass grown back over some, but the most recent, the one only thirty-six days old, is still nothing but turned up soil. 

Neither of us say anything, but we both know what we should do.

Bellamy helps me sit on the grass beside him, next to his headstone. He works Apollo out of his carrier and hands him to me, then steps back.

Apollo coos in my arms, his little brown eyes staring up at me. "This is the person you saved," I tell Miller. "This is Apollo." He can't see us and I know that, but I still pull the blanket away from his face a bit, just enough to expose his little chin. "You're the reason I got to meet him. I wish you got to meet him too. I know you loved him already though; I got the mobile. It hangs above his crib. He doesn't know what it is yet, obviously, but I like to imagine when he looks at it with awe - the way he looks at everything - that he knows who made it and what it means. About how my love for you brought us down from space, about how your love for me saved him. In a way, you're the reason he's here. I would've never met Bellamy if I never came to Earth, and I would've never made it out of Polis without you. Even in death, somehow you've still managed to reshape the path of my life." I brush back Apollo's hair with a finger, feeling the silky fine baby hair slip through my fingers. "I hear you won the bet. Two out of three isn't bad. Better than I did." I pause. "I bet you're enjoying that week off work Murphy promised. You deserve every bit of rest. You've done so much to earn it."

All I can think of is how the only thing left for him now is rest and nothingness, so I turn back to Bellamy, signaling to him that I'm done, this is all I can bear. Bellamy fits Apollo back in the carrier and helps me up, steadying my shaky legs. 

I look down at the grave and try to imagine his face, not as it was when he died, but as it was when he was unburdened with the weight of tragedy and survival, when he was laughing with me in a hidden stairwell, or holding me on his shoulders as we tried to find a book in the library, or when I received my pharma apprenticeship when we were only twelve. I'm choosing to only remember the good times, the times of love and joy. "May we meet again."

We don't go far for our walk. It's really just out of sight of camp, but it feels better than being in the same building in the same camp for nearly a week. The woods open up to a clearing by a slow stream. The water is icy, so I bend down for a drink, albeit ungracefully. Bellamy spreads out a blanket in the grass and changes Apollo’s diaper. I join him moments later. He wraps the three of us in a warm blanket and pours a cup of tea for each of us.

I sip the hot tea, letting the heat warm me from the inside, even if it is just bitter leaf juice. For a few brief moments, we sit in silence, just enjoying each other’s presence and the ambient sounds of wildlife. As if on cue, Apollo starts to cry.

“Oh, no, what’s wrong?” Bellamy coos, rocking him back and forth. “Are you cold? You don’t feel cold. I just changed you. What’s the matter?”

“I think it’s cluster feeding,” I tell him. “Althea said it happens in the early days to help build your milk supply. They only drink a little at a time but they want to nurse constantly.” I reach out for Apollo and lift my shirt. “I love you, son, but if you don’t stop soon, someone is going to have to milk me like a cow.”

Bellamy reaches out, putting his arm around me. I relax in the space between his shoulder and neck, leaning into his body heat. When Apollo is done, I swaddle him back up and tuck him in between us.

“I have something for you,” he tells me.

“You do?”

“I didn’t actually make it,” he says, pulling something out of his pocket, a folded piece of thick paper. “But I asked for it to be made, and I hope that counts.”

I trade Apollo for the paper. I gently unfold it, and the image takes my breath away.

There are no cameras on Earth anymore, but the drawing captured the moment perfectly.

It was the moment just after Apollo’s birth, the moment when we first laid eyes on our son. My hands are outstretched as a second pair of hands reach him to us, all three of us crying. Clarke had drawn the picture from her perspective of the moment. Every emotion held within that room was right there on the paper, sketched in charcoal lines. Besides Apollo himself, this drawing was the most precious thing on Earth.

It almost happens automatically. I reach up, cupping his cheek, and pull him down for a salty, tear filled kiss. I choke out two simple words, barely audible, barely capturing what I feel. “Thank you.” 

The whistling noise breaks us apart.

The explosion that shakes the valley has us clinging to each other. 

It startles Apollo, making him cry.

I rush to my feet, the sudden movement sending a jolt of pain and making my head swoon, reminding me I’m still not healed. I take a moment to catch my breath. “What was that?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He hands me the baby and hurriedly picks up our things. “Come on. Let’s get you two back to camp and then I’ll go find out.”

We manage to make the ten minute walk in five. By the time we reach the gates, I feel dizzy.

“Did you guys see that?” 

“What was that?”

“It looked like a dropship.”

“It wasn’t a dropship. Everyone on the Ark has been dead for months.”

Bellamy turns to me. “I’m going to round up a few others and go check it out.”

I grab his shirt as he turns to leave. “Wait.” I plant a kiss on his lips, the first genuine public display of affection. I can’t bear the thought of him running towards the dangerous explosion. I don’t want him to be the first causality. I can't lose him now. I can't raise Apollo by myself.

“I’ll be back,” he promises. 

I give him a halfhearted smile. “I know.” But I don't know. You can never know when you'll see someone again down here.

Bellamy enlists Monroe and Ethan and sets out for the woods. Before he can step foot outside camp, branches begin to break, coming closer. They pause, drawing their guns. Something big is coming, and it’s coming straight for us. I feel like I might throw up. 

Raven comes to stand beside me. “Now that kiss certainly looked different than some of the other things I've seen.”

“Quiet,” I shush her, holding Apollo close. “I think we have bigger problems than my love life.”

As the sound approaches, it becomes clear it is not one very big creature, but many smaller ones.

“Wait. Are those voices? Is that –?”

Guards posted at the gate call out: “It’s them! Let them in!”

From across the yard I hear: “Mom?" Clarke goes sprinting to the gate, nearly tackling a thin, short woman with a hug. 

“Wait a minute,” Raven says. “Is that Abby?”

I furrow my brow. “We’re all seeing this, right? I thought everyone on the Ark died months ago.”

“I guess not,” Raven says. Her eyes scan the crowd, then she grins, breaking out into her own hobbling sprint. “Sinclair!”

At least a hundred people pour in through the gate, most finding their children or loved ones, others standing around looking at the ground as they realize their child now resides in the graveyard outside the wall.

The knot in my stomach begins to dissolve. I wander over to the gate myself, curious to know if there are any familiar faces in the crowd.

Lo and behold, it actually is Dr. Abby Griffin standing there. And there is Sinclair, and Vice Chancellor Kane, and even Chancellor Jaha. 

“Mom,” Clarke says, bringing her mother over and gesturing to me. “This is Morgan. And somewhere in that bundle of blankets is number 103, if you count Bellamy and Raven.”

Abby shakes her head. “103? What do you mean by that?”

I turn my bundle of blankets around and show her his face. “This is Apollo.”

She takes in a gasp. “A baby? On Earth? Who delivered him? In what conditions? How –?”

Clarke cuts off her endless string of questions with a proud smile. “I did. Four days ago. I even handled a retained placenta and postpartum hemorrhage.”

Abby's eyes widen. “All by yourself?”

She looks sheepish, unwilling to take credit completely for herself. "I had Harper and Althea too.”

“Who’s Althea? You know what, doesn’t matter.” Abby wraps her daughter in a hug. “I remember the days when you were a newborn. And now look,” she gestures to us. “Now you’re old enough to be delivering them all by yourself.”

“It would’ve been nice to have you,” Clarke admits. “I panicked for a minute.”

“You seemed to have handled it wonderfully on your own. I’m so proud of you.” A moment and then, like everyone else: “Can I see him again?” I pass him to her. She holds him for a moment, gently caressing his smooth cheeks. She leans back, getting a better look, her eyebrows scrunched. “You know, he looks exactly like –”

“Me?” Bellamy comes up behind her, a wide smile on his face, the same one it takes on anytime he interacts with Apollo. He runs a gentle hand over the curve of his head. “That’s because he’s my son.”

Abby laughs a little, reaching him back to me. “They always come out looking like their father. You go through all that for nine whole months for them to look like little clones of their dad.”

“What happened up there, Mom?” Clarke asks. “We lost contact with the Ark back in July. We just assumed the oxygen systems finally failed and you were all dead. There was a radio loop and everything.”

“Former Chancellor Diana happened. She decided she was going to make sure she got a place on a dropship, and she launched one herself. She ignored the protocol and it crippled the Ark. About two hundred and fifty survived. After months of work and another culling," she winces, "we were able to salvage the only dropship we had left.”

“That was the dropship we saw.” Clarke nods. “No one survived.”

Abby shakes her head. “I’m not surprised.”

Somewhere in the crowd, I hear something that makes my throat tighten and my heart hurt. 

“I’m looking for Nathan Miller. Have you seen him? Have you seen my son?”

I owe it to him to be the one to break the news. I turn, scanning the crowd. “David?”

He looks around for a moment before recognizing me. “Morgan!” He jogs over. “Where’s Nate?”

“Miller, he –." My lip trembles. I take a deep, shaky breath. “He’s dead.”

“He’s what?” The joy from his face falls. “What do you mean he’s dead?”

I reach out and touch his arm, trying to be comforting. “It was a good death. He –” 

He jerks his arm back. “A good death? What does that even mean? What have you kids been doing down here?”

“He gave his life, to pay for something he didn’t do, to save me.” I nod at the baby. “And to save him.”

“So, I take it you two made up? And you clearly exploited him yet again.”

He turns to leave, but Bellamy, suddenly behind him, stops him. “I think you should listen to what she has to say.”

“There are other people living here. They have been this whole time,” I explain. “And they were going to kill one of us for breaking into their holy place to save a toddler. There was no way around it. That’s how they live – life has the ultimate cost and it must be repaid when it’s taken.”

He spits the words out like venom. “We should’ve killed you on the Ark when you killed Corbin. Nate would still be alive, and Corbin's death would’ve been paid.” 

“It was me or him. He volunteered to die. He begged them to kill him instead, because killing me would’ve meant taking two lives instead of one.”

“What do you mean ‘two lives’?”

I sigh. “I was pregnant. I was reckless, and naïve, and despite carrying most precious cargo, I made dangerous choices that I shouldn’t have. I hadn’t changed then. I have now, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter now.” I square my shoulders. “I am the reason Miller lost his cadetship, the reason he was locked up, and the reason he was sent down here. Had I not tried to protect him, I would’ve never been locked up or sent down here. I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, and Miller wouldn’t have died trying to protect us. I can’t change what happened, but I do take responsibility for the loss of his life and of the others who have died in my wake. I will never forget their faces for as long as I live.”

“You’re sick.” David shakes his head. He spits at my feet. “You’re a monster. You’ve haven’t changed. That baby doesn’t make you a good person. You don’t deserve to be alive.”

“She saved a little girl.” Murphy walks up behind me, hands in his pockets. “Her name is Iris. She was only two years old and had been stolen from her mother. They were going to raise her as a strategic, cold-blooded warrior and stick an AI in her head. She risked everything to bring that child home safely.”

“And she did it,” Harper adds. “She spent weeks getting the formulation right to knock out the flamekeepers but not kill them. The only reason one of them died is because he was fasting and had lost weight. Morgan did everything she could to avoid his death.”

“Her pharma training proved invaluable on the ground.” Clarke says. “It’s called practicing medicine for a reason; I couldn’t have done it without her. She earned the trust of a nervous woman – without whom we would still be woefully unaware of how this world works. She’s been tirelessly trying to convert her knowledge and skills to work on Earth. She tried to help someone die peacefully to save him the inevitable pain of the death that was coming for him.”

“She saved her own life during delivery with the medicine she made.” Bellamy kisses my temple. 

“The truth is,” Raven shrugs. “There’s not a single person down here who isn’t guilty of murder.”

Jasper materializes from the crowd. “You sent us down here to die. Doesn’t that make you guilty too?”

David points at Jasper. “You don’t get to speak to your superiors that way, Mr. Jordan. This symbol on my jacket means you will respect me.”

“Well, Mr. Miller,” Jasper mocks, “if you won’t respect us – you know, the pioneers of Earth, the ones who assimilated into a hostile society, who survived against the odds when everyone wanted us to die – there’s the gate,” Jasper points. “Get out.”

“This camp works because of the contributions we all make. This camp is made of murderers and thieves and traitors, and yet look at it.” Clarke makes a wide gesture. “We have cabins and a kitchen and _showers_. We have showers because of the engineers you cast away because they made a mistake. How can you stand here and pretend to be the perfect judge of character? You have no idea what these people are capable of because you’ve already decided who they are based on one choice they’ve made.”

Chancellor Jaha comes up behind him and puts a firm hand on David’s shoulder. “Is there a problem here?” 

“No,” he shrugs him off. “We’re done here.”

“Well,” Jaha says, turning to the crowd. “I believe these young ones deserve some appreciation!”

The adults who’ve just come down, the very same people who thought us expendable, acceptable losses, the very same who so selfishly threw us away like waste, now look at us as though we’re their saviors.

“On the Ark, I had no choice but to make the decisions I made.” He turns to us, to the seventy-three of the hundred who are left, who have aged many years fast, and the three additions who were never supposed to be here. “I must apologize to each of you. The choices I made were not without difficulty. I was trying to save the human race. I could not die with the thought that a species who had survived for thousands of years finally died out on my watch. You deserved an explanation. You deserved to know what was happening to you. You deserved the choice. I didn't give that to you, and I'm sorry.

“Despite everything, despite the situation you were forced to face, look at what you have made here. You were once all strangers who had nothing. But look. You have homes,” he continues. “And walls. And trust.” He looks and Bellamy and I and the baby. “And love.

“You are no longer surviving here. You are thriving.” He puts his hands in his pockets, looking at us all with pride. “It’s more than we ever could have hoped for.”

Despite all the anger I had built up over the last few months for the others on the Ark, I realize Jaha is right. I had a home, a real home, not one room made of metal and hand-me-down furniture. I had friends who were everything to me and I to them, bonded through tragedy and trauma. I had survived the hardest moment of my life, again and again and again. Apollo nuzzles against my chest and Bellamy has a hand on my shoulder, his thumb rubbing gentle circles. Jaha was right. It was more than I ever could have hoped for.


	37. Epilogue

_**23 years, 1 month, and 19 days old April 21, 2173** _

In the end, we had three.

Apollo was my learning curve. I didn’t have a clue about babies or toddlers or children or teenagers. But he taught me each of them, sometimes forcefully, and I learned to grow with him.

August was our second, born three years after Apollo. Bellamy talked me into giving Apollo a sibling with stories of growing up with Octavia, and he was right. The bond the brothers had was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Things were good, and though I’d never had one myself, I came to love having a big family. August was my easy baby. Textbook birth, easy toddler, easy kid. I knew what I was doing that time around. I somehow came to think I’d learned everything there was to know about raising children, like I was some kind of pro now.

August was the one who fooled me into having our third child and only daughter, Juliet, two years after him. She had red hair and her father’s eyes. But oh, did she test us. Born sunny side up, she was the one who made me curse Bellamy’s name and the ground he walked on, swearing there’d never be another. She was a colicky baby and I don’t think she slept until she was five years old. As a child, her favorite person was Jasper, if that tells you anything about how she turned out. She mellowed out slightly as a teenager, but there were still times when we came home to the house filled with leaves, or everything turned upside down, or a bucket of water perched above the door to dump on us the moment we came in.

I loved them all. I love them still.

I’d been a mother for twenty-three years now. I’d been a mother longer than not.

The cabin we lived in now was bigger than the one Apollo was born in. By the time we had a five-year-old and two-year-old and a third on the way, it became apparent we needed more space. The new cabin had three rooms, one for the kids, one for us, and one we shared together, as a family. 

I fold clothes on our bed, sorting them into piles and putting them away in the dresser.

Sitting on top of the dresser were two fine china teacups, a teapot, and a matching dinner plate, with cobalt blue designs rimmed in gold. I take a cup down and trace the golden edge, remembering the night after Apollo's birth. It was cold, but not as cold February had been. I remember feeling weak and dizzy if I moved – it was the hardest recovery I had – but somehow the details of how I felt have faded. What I do remember is Bellamy coming in with a teapot full of tea despite my hatred of the stuff, and a plate of food, the first real thing I felt like eating in an entire day. I don't remember what I ate, only that it was the best meal I ever had. We ate dinner together in bed and snuggled our new baby until late in the night, the adrenaline of parenthood making us invincible to the pull of sleep. What I would've given to have that energy every night.

He did that with every baby we had. August was born at midnight in July, so we filled the teapot with ice water and clinked our cups together like we were in a movie. Juliet came in late October, so we filled it with apple cider and had wild turkey for lunch, watching leaves fall through the window while we ate.

I put the cup back. It feels odd for the house to be quiet. Juliet was seventeen now and she was not one to be tied down – just like her mother – and often spent her days on horseback, going on all kinds of adventures with her aunt. She always came home eventually, though I did miss her, not realizing how much I would miss her noise and chaos.

“Mom?” August stands in the doorway of our bedroom, leaned up against the doorframe. Apollo looked like a carbon copy of Bellamy, but August took on all his mannerisms, sometimes making me do a double take. “Dad’s looking for you.”

“And he didn’t think to check here?” I laugh, laying the shirt I was folding on the bed. “Your father doesn’t use his head sometimes. Come on,” I motion to him. “Where is he?”

“He’s standing outside the old house looking wistful. You know how he gets.”

Our old house was set aside from the others, near the edge of the fence. The daffodils I planted twenty years ago were in bloom, and Bellamy stood against the posts of the porch – a later addition – and August was right. He was looking wistful. 

He smiles as I approach. “There you are.”

“Did you have kids just so they could run errands for you?” I ask.

He pulls me into his side, holding me close. I didn’t often appreciate his way of showing love when I was younger – he liked to protect and shelter and I did not like to be pinned – but I grew to understand it, remembering the way he’d grown up with Octavia, and then I grew to love it as we had children and he protected them fiercely, even when they didn’t like it either. I came to understand that we were not that different in that sense, I had overstepped many boundaries in the name of people I loved, forcing my way in to protect them in the way I thought was best. “I might have.”

“You know you can just ask to hold me yourself,” I say, leaning into him. “You don’t have to bother them.”

“It’s payback for all the times I was peed on, pooped on, puked on, kept up all night. They bothered me a lot when they were little.”

I look up at him, his eyes watery. “And now you’re missing the days when they all fit in this house.”

He looks down, a tear falling. “Yeah.”

I rub his back gently and lean my head against his chest. “Me too.”

Apollo steps out of his house, directly across from the old house, holding Iris’s hand, going for another walk. 

Sipping a cup of tea, Althea walks over to us, leaning against an adjacent post.

I look over at the woman who’d taught me everything I know, who’d become my best friend over all these years. “Did you ever imagine this?”

Althea looks back and smiles at me. “Our kids having kids?”

Apollo and Iris walk hand in hand through the camp – though, I suppose it’s less of a camp and more of a village now – still just as giddy to see each other as they were as teenagers and their friendship was beginning to blossom into something more. They were in their early and mid-twenties now, and Iris was two days overdue with their first child. 

“No,” she sighs, her tone bittersweet. “I didn’t think we would all live to see it.”

“Sometimes, with the way things were going,” I pause, letting the weight of the thought wash over me, a sadness I hadn’t dared face in many years, “I didn’t think I’d live to see Apollo even be born.” Bellamy holds me tighter. “I didn’t let myself imagine what it’d be like to see him with a family of his own.”

“I never thought Iris would get to have a normal life with her nightblood. Once her cord was cut and I saw it was black blood,” she shakes her head, “I knew I had the choice of hiding her away her whole life or watching her die in the arena, or shortly after if she became Commander. I thought there was no hope.” She turns to me. “Thanks for that, by the way. I don’t think I ever thanked you for getting that abolished.”

“Don’t thank me, I’m terrible with politics. Thank Bellamy and his need to protect every child ever born.”

Althea laughs. “That’s what parenthood does to you. That mother/father instinct kicks in and it never leaves you. Not even when your babies grow up and move on. You still have that instinct to protect the little ones.”

I stand there admiring my first son, admiring the man he grew up to be. He is compassionate and resourceful and strong-willed. He took after neither of us in occupation, and instead had followed Raven around since toddlerhood, and was now a skilled mechanic and engineer. He stops to hold Iris during what looks like a contraction. He rubs her back as she leans her weight on him, whispering something in her ear. I’m reminded of Bellamy doing that for me, and it’s like seeing my own labor with him twenty-three years ago from an outside perspective. When it passes, they smile at each other again and continue walking, trying to get labor started, eager to meet their new baby, fearless at entering this new phase of life. “They have no idea what’s in store for them.”

Althea tilts her head, smiling at the pair, admiring her own daughter, who’d grown up to be an excellent diplomat. Leadership was in her blood, regardless of the Flame being destroyed. “Best job I ever had.”


End file.
